


"The Doctor Falls" S10.12: Decoding Doctor Who Season 10 Episodes & Christmas 2017

by TardisGirlLoveStory



Series: Season 10 Doctor Who [13]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Analysis, F/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2018-11-30 13:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11465019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisGirlLoveStory/pseuds/TardisGirlLoveStory
Summary: This is the continuing work of a multi-chapter handbook and meta analysis for Season 10 of BBC's Doctor Who.  While it's not absolutely necessary to read the previous documents, I do build on the concepts and metaphors explained previously.  However, I provide links to a lot of the referenced concepts and metaphors for this episode.Season 10 spoiler warnings, as well as for the Christmas Special for 2017





	1. The Rescue Is Not Over, Heather & What the Prison Ship Tells Us (Updated)

**Author's Note:**

> **** Spoiler warning. ****
> 
> Check out my [meta archive on Tumblr](http://tardisgirlepic.tumblr.com/meta-archive) for images

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not everything is as it appears. We'll examine various things, especially what the prison ship tells us. Updated: Somehow, a couple of sections got cut off after the 5th Circle of Hell. Fixed it.
> 
> Season 10 spoiler warnings, as well as for the Christmas Special for 2017

**NOTE:**  
TPEW = “The Pyramid at the End of the World”  
TRODM = “The Return of Doctor Mysterio”  
THORS = “The Husbands of River Song”  
CAL = Charlotte Abigail Lux, the little girl from the Library

##  **The Rescue Isn’t Over**

The long rescue isn’t over yet, which is why the Doctor’s story hasn’t ended.  There is a Horse metaphor in the TARDIS at the end to prove it, shown below (red arrow).   


Not only that, there are 4 other horses, too, symbolizing the 4 Horses of the Apocalypse, but with added new meaning, which we’ll examine.  It’s foreshadowing for Christmas.  We have to come back to the ship or a similar setting, and I’ll show you why in another chapter.  In fact, there are several other pieces of subtext that say the rescue isn’t over.

There’s also a mechanical-type horse that we’ll look at.

##  **Not Everything Is As It Appears**

Right at the start, we hear birdsong, a sign that we still haven’t gotten back to reality in the Library metaphor.  We should finally get to the bottom of the main story in the Christmas Special.  There’s plenty of foreshadowing for it in the finale, which I’ll show you throughout this analysis.

However, birdsong is not the only problem that says something is wrong.  For example, the cut on the Doctor’s forehead should have healed over the 2 weeks between when Bill brought him back and she woke up.  However, it didn’t.  In fact, it opened up somewhat as the episode went on.  This was going in reverse, just like his timeline.

Additionally, there were plenty of reflections, inverse reflections in the ponds, and other such things to tell us that we shouldn’t believe everything we are seeing.

In another oddity, Bill saw the Doctor’s regeneration energy on the prison ship in “The Lie of the Land,” so why didn’t she know about it in “The Doctor Falls”?

Also, how did the Doctor, CyberBill, Missy, the Master have trouble taking out one Cyberman, who came up in the lift in the forest?   Yet at the end, the Doctor was going through the forest taking out numerous Cybermen all by himself, shooting them left and right?

Then, the scene with Bill and Heather in the TARDIS isn’t quite happening the way it looks.  This suggests to me that Bill will be back in some form at Christmas, even if it’s a clip.  And we’ll examine more subtext, telling us who Heather is.  We looked at that before in “The Pilot” analysis, but there’s some additional information now.

We'll examine what's happening with some of these in this analysis.

##  **Showing You the Subtext through a Different Format**

Given that we have plenty of time to look at information before the Christmas Special comes out, I want to step back and give you a different format for how to look at what is happening in the finale and the rest of DW.  

In the previous analyses, I haven’t concentrated too much on setting and characters.  I’ve done more with themes and other important pieces of subtext.  However, the setting, characters and themes all foreshadow things for Christmas, besides telling us more about the finale.  Therefore, I want to concentrate mostly on these elements.

Another element we need to examine are a few mirrored scenes from other episodes, showing us how this all fits together with previous canon.  

##  **Brilliant 2-Part Finale with the Resolution in the Xmas Special**

Before I get into the meta, I want to give you my opinion of the finale because I offered my opinion on two-part episodes before the airing of “The Doctor Falls.”  

Typically, the subtext story in the 2nd part overtakes the surface story, leaving, for example, plot holes or something tied up too quickly, which takes away the emotional aspect.  (This has happened a lot, too, with Season 10 in general, just because everything has to be tied up quickly since Capaldi is leaving.)  With so much story left to tell before the final episode, I wasn’t sure how they could finish it adequately except through a cliffhanger.  

Therefore, while I was deeply concerned that the 2nd part of the finale would never live up to such a great 1st part, I came away elated at how things turned out.  The 2nd part was brilliant and very much lived up to the 1st half.  

There was a fantastic mix of subtext story and canon because most of the subtext story prior to this has now become canon. 

At the same time, I’m so grateful that Moffat opted to give the story the room it needs by finishing it in the Christmas Special.  Still there’s a lot to tell.  I have no doubt that the heart of the main story will get told, but many of the details will have to be in the subtext.

The subtext foreshadowed the main points that happened in the finale, and it was beautiful to watch how everything came together, showing us the near resolution of the Doctor’s 3-season character arc, as well as the very long story in the making since Classic Who.  Not only that, Missy, too, had a 3-season-ish character arc, turning from the dark side at the end. 

Also, I’m elated that the 1st Doctor showed up at the end, as the subtext suggested would most likely happen.  We will hopefully see Susan, too.

So we need to see the final rescue story and the Doctor reuniting with his family.  

Because the subtext was heavily referencing former cast members, I expected to see some of them show up, and they did.  It just wasn’t in the way I imaged, except for John Simm.  However, seeing clips of Jack and of all the Doctor’s female companions, including Sarah Jane, Clara, and River was enough to satisfy me until the Christmas Special.

Will Clara show up for Christmas?  I’m not sure if her appearance in the finale counts as finishing the Great Work.  The subtext in “The Eaters of Light” suggested that he was remembering her.  However, does that mean he remembers everything about her?  This has a complication, too, which I’ll show you below.

##  **Extending the Library Metaphor: Holo-decks & Some Perception Filters**

The brilliant 2-part finale extends the meaning of the Library metaphor in connection with the Eye of Harmony.  We know that people in this metaphor typically live in dreams and illusions, like CAL does.  The nightmarish situation of reality becomes just a nightmare while dreams seem real.  That includes CAL seeing herself as a little girl even though she’s a cyborg.  So the terrible truth is hidden.  

The people on Floor 507 at the beginning of “The Doctor Falls” don’t even know they are on a ship.  Therefore, they are analogous to CAL and Donna in the Library dream being fed lies by Doctor Moon.  They are living in a Star Trek-style holo-deck.

Bill, too, mirrors CAL in not knowing she isn’t the person she once was.  They both see themselves through memories.  According to the Doctor, Bill’s mind is acting like a perception filter.  She could easily be in a fugue state, where the mind runs away from the truth.  We examined that with Jackson Lake in “The Next Doctor” and Oswin Oswald in “Asylum of the Daleks.”

Therefore, we can add a holo-deck to illusionary possibilities for our Library metaphor, along with some perception filters – when they act like they do with Bill and CAL.  Also, we can add fugue states in similar situations. 

##  **The Doctor’s 3-season Arc: A Good Man?**

The 12th Doctor has been on an amazing journey over the last 3 seasons, wondering at the beginning if he was a good man.  He started off grumpy, aloof, and not caring after having helped end the Time War.  While his journey isn’t over yet and he’s been taking the “long way home,” we have our answer.

He is both a good and great man.  As a good man, he is helping the people on Floor 507 due to his kindness and decency, even to strangers, because it is right not to abandon scared children and adults.  Also, as a good man, he is giving his life for them, and that is also part of what makes him a great man.  We see the war hero in action, a man who has had a decisive historical impact on Gallifrey and the Time War.  It’s now easy to see how he caused so many deaths.

####  **The War Doctor**

The BBC put out a promo photo of the Season 10 finale, which is a mirror of the one they put out for “The Day of the Doctor.”  Since several analyses ago we examined my hypothesis that the Doctor was really the War Doctor, I was delighted to see them.

Here’s a 50th-anniversary image with the small version of the War Doctor in the middle, along with the 11th and 10th Doctors back-to-back.  


Here’s the image the BBC put out for the Season 10 finale with the small version of the 12th Doctor in the middle, along with Missy and the Master back-to-back.  


While the 11th Doctor calls the War Doctor “Granddad” in “The Day of the Doctor,” the Master, mirroring the 11th Doctor, calls the 12th Doctor “Granddad” in “The Doctor Falls.”

The Season 10 finale is meant to give us some subtext details of the Time War in a brilliant model of the Library metaphor universe, complete with a sort of, kind of Heaven metaphor, as well as a Hell metaphor.  (We’ll examine this more in depth in a bit.)  The Doctor is in a desperate, no-win situation, and while he could run, he’s made a choice.  This is a retelling of the same choice the 8th Doctor makes: becoming the War Doctor to fight in the Time War.  

The difference is that we don’t see the 12th Doctor regenerate.  He doesn’t have to.  He’s been transforming through the Great Work, returning to what he was born to be.  The warrior, a weapon of mass destruction, and a child of war.  His newborn consciousness, at least one face, arose from the ashes on Trenzalore.  Then, we have a huge gap from there until we see him in “Deep Breath.”  Part of events in that missing time can be inferred from what is happening in the finale.

After we examine the setting of the ship, floors, ice, characters, themes, etc., I'll put everything together for you, so you can see the Doctor's story in a more condensed format, rather than through many analyses.

##  **Problems with the Previous Time War Episodes**

There are a lot of problems, oddities, and hand waving with the previous episodes talking about the Time War story.  For example, the 9th Doctor said he stopped the Time War by blowing up Gallifrey, as well as all the Time Lords and all the Daleks.  How is that possible unless they are all on Gallifrey?  Why would the Doctor assume some are not on Skaro or elsewhere?   This has never made sense to me.  At least until the Season 10 finale, which I’ll explain in another chapter.  Also, if he blew them up with the Moment (like what we saw in “The Day of the Doctor”), how did the Doctor survive according to what we think we know about him in canon?  

####  **“The End of Time”**

In a 2nd example of weirdness, Rassilon and the Chancellor are talking about something really odd in [“The End of Time” Part 2](http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/30-18.htm):

> **CHANCELLOR** : The signal has been sent. A simple task of four beats transmitted back through time, and implanted in the Master's mind as a child.  
>  **RASSILON** : Then we have a link to where the Master is right now.  
>  **CHANCELLOR** : But we're still trapped inside the time lock, sir. The link is nothing more than a thought, an idea.

Gallifrey is in a time lock here?  But the Doctor said he blew up Gallifrey.  We didn’t hear about the Doctor putting Gallifrey in a time lock until “The Day of the Doctor,” but then DW doesn’t tell the story linearly anyway.  Things are timey-whimey here.  

####  **“The Day of the Doctor”**

In a 3rd example, in “The Day of the Doctor,” 11 Doctors, the War Doctor, and somehow the 12th Doctor (more hand waving) put Gallifrey in a time lock.  Some things don’t add up here, like greenery on the floor of the barn when there’s a desert around them.  Something is wrong.  

Also, the scene of the War Doctor looking at the barn in the distance (red arrow, shown below) looks like a bad matte painting in relation to other quality images of Gallifrey in this episode and in “Hell Bent.”  It isn’t real, and it isn’t supposed to be.  The greenery suggests these were the Doctor’s memories of a time long gone. 

####  **“Hell Bent”**

In a 4th example, there are problems in “Hell Bent.”  Gallifrey is back in the universe, but at the end of it.   While there’s hand waving here, I can accept that because we are talking about Time Lords.

However, for what we think we know in canon, there are still other problems, which I haven’t previously mentioned with “The Day of the Doctor,” and they still exist in “Hell Bent.”  The inside of the barn is shown below, as the Doctor walks in.   


First, the yellow arrow points to a big truck tire or, more likely, one from a tractor.  That was surprising!  I didn’t expect that with such an advanced society, especially in a desert.  So something is off.  It also looks so human.

Then, the green arrow points to the structure that represents a prison – a 6-sided figure – which is also part of the structure I saw in the 3rd Doctor story “The Ambassadors of Death.”  (We examined that story’s significance in [“The Empress of Mars” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11220990/chapters/25071333).)

The 3rd arrow (white) points to something really odd.  It’s not a normal barn structure but the hull structure of an overturned boat.  No one would build a barn with timbers crafted like that. 

I figured the ship was supposed to be Viking (or metaphorical Viking) when I saw “The Day of the Day” because the 11th Doctor had a Viking funeral in a boat.  

Then, I got my Viking question answered, at least in part, in “Smile.”  The Doctor and Bill are in the Vardy building, looking for the original colony ship:

> **DOCTOR** : When the Vikings invaded, they used to pull their longboats out of the water, turn them upside down and live in them as houses until they'd pillaged and looted enough to build new ones.  
>  **BILL** : So?  
>  **DOCTOR** : You didn't see a space ship outside, did you? When the settlers first landed, they must have lived in it and built out from it, so it's still here, somewhere inside this building. Ah. (a not-perfectly-smooth-and-white wall) Bits of meteor damage. Flecks of rust. Rivets. Oh, I love rivets. A wall. A real, honest wall. Not made of tiny robots but made of any old iron.

So, does that mean the barn really is a symbol of invasion?  Or is it just the symbol of the original colony ship or just a ship that landed on Gallifrey? I’ve been considering these questions.

##  **The Setting Is Driving the Story**

At the beginning of the 1st episode of the finale, the Doctor did another bootstrap paradox to go back to near the beginning of his timeline.  We are witnessing a brilliant microcosm of an alternate universe and how it operates with the Black Hole of the Eye of Harmony.  This setting also allows us to see an example of how the Time War works with one end of the ship in closer proximity to the Black Hole.  This microcosm universe, then, shows us how time is a continuum across the ship.

The Black Hole and ship are analogous to the Black Hole and Planet in “The Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit.”  In both the 10th and 12th Doctor episodes, the situations become desperate, and there is a rebellion.  However, the rebellion in the 12th Doctor episodes is not so clear-cut.  

The Master said that everyone on the ship is dying.  The only way the people on Floor 1056 can survive is to rebel against squalid conditions and death by upgrading themselves to Cybermen.  They are desperate to break free, building an army through forced upgrades.  At least some see evolving to Cybermen as freedom.

However, the people on Floor 507 are desperate to save their children from being turned into Cybermen.  They see Cybermen as slavery and death and are rebelling in their own way.

We’re at the root of the ideological war, foreshadowed since Season 2 of nuWho, which we examined in [Chapter 16: “Doctor Mysterio Analysis Part 3: Ideological War for Season 10 & the Eye of Harmony.”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/23325488)

##  **Heaven, Purgatory & Hell in the Alternate Universe**

The differential of time between Floor 0 the Floor 1056 is an interesting number: approximately 1000 to 1001 years per day.  This curious set of numbers recalls 2 Peter 3 in the New Testament:

> With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Therefore, Floor 0 is the Heaven Metaphor, and Floor 1056 is the Hell metaphor.  Interestingly, the Doctor goes to Hell in “World Enough and Time” to get Bill back, and we saw him in a different kind of Hell in “Heaven Sent” before he brought Clara back.  However, the Doctor can’t get back to metaphorical Heaven while he is alive.  

####  **The Heaven Metaphor & God’s Names**

The Heaven metaphor on Floor 0 looks futuristic, especially in comparison to the rest of the ship.  It’s bathed in light colors, too, as opposed to the darkness on Floor 1056.  It follows the light and dark patterns that we’ve examined in multiple ways.

Allusions to God come up in several ways regarding this Heaven metaphor.  Here are just a few for now. 

This ship situation is analogous to the people in “The God Complex,” who don’t realize they are on a prison ship in a Star Trek holodeck-type situation.  There, too, we see both a “heavenly” side where people lost their fear of being taken by the Minotaur.  They were in a euphoric state, like a dream, while they eagerly awaited death.  That’s in contrast to the hellish side of everything before euphoria set in, which is analogous to pre-conversion Cybermen, at least on Floor 1056.

One odd thing about the ship in this Season 10 finale is that the floors have numbers on the sky ceilings.  

So I wonder what the people in this bucolic setting think of the sky with a grid, the number 507, clouds, etc. in the heavens?  Is that the name of God for them?  It’s a fascinating question, especially since God comes up a lot lately in DW, and many religions have multiple names for God: Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism, etc.  Therefore, floor numbers as [names for God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God#Christianity) seem apt, given the reference to “The God Complex” and the 1000 years per day between the 2 ends of the ship.

In fact, in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, God is quoted as saying "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."  In “The Zygon Invasion,” the Zygons in human form are in a church that has the symbols for Alpha and Omega, shown below.  And between Alpha and Omega is the Sun symbol.  Missy talked about the Master burning like a Sun, and we know the Doctor does too.  We’ll look at this more in a later chapter.  


Baby Melody Pond is associated with Omega.  And in fact, River was associated with the Church of the Papal Mainframe in “The Time of Angels” and “Flesh and Stone,” which uses an omega and what looks to be the capital Greek letter pi superimposed mostly within the omega.

Besides Christianity, if we count mythological gods, I’ve showed you a few of them, but there are a lot more that the Doctor is associated with in the subtext. 

And I believe there is a reference to the Hindu god Shiva in “World Enough and Time.”  After the Doctor used Venusian Aikido (a very 3rd Doctor maneuver) on Jorj, the Doctor says something interesting to Nardole’s comment:

> **DOCTOR** : Venusian Aikido.  
>  **NARDOLE** : I thought you needed four arms for Venusian.  
>  **DOCTOR** : I've got hidden talents, as well as hidden arms.

This makes sense because Shiva is the destroyer of the universe, so he can re-create it.  He is part of the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity, which includes Brahma and Vishnu.  Shiva has 2 to 4 arms (and can have more) and a 3rd eye.  The Doctor has a 3rd eye of sorts (red arrow) in the opening credits.  


####  **Purgatory Metaphor**

Floor 507 isn’t Heaven, per se, but compared to Floor 1056 it’s much more heavenly.  So 507 is like the intermediate state, relating to the Purgatory metaphor.  Not everyone on Floor 507 or possibly on other floors may be considered to be in Purgatory, although they could be.

I’m using the metaphor for those people who have died previously, like the Doctor and Bill, who are, according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgatory), in an intermediate state after physical death in which some of those ultimately destined for heaven must first, according to the [Catechism of the Catholic Church](http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm) "undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven," holding that "certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come."

Afterlife purification is not unique to Catholicism.  Other religions, like Judaism, have something similar.

BTW, it's clear to me that DW is using the Purgatory metaphor to apply to several other characters, too. We'll examine them in a future chapter.

 **The Doctor Earned His Wings**  
With all the allusions to God, Heaven, and _It’s a Wonderful Life_ ([“The Eaters of Light” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11288070/chapters/25251672)), it’s clear the Doctor really is a mirror of Clarence the Angel, 2nd Class, who was trying to earn his wings.  For example, Missy, the Doctor’s project, did turn toward the light at the end.

After the Doctor died, he earned one wing to Heaven, as the image below shows (red arrow).  His coat spread out under his right arm showing the red lining serves as a wing.  


After Heather and Bill move the Doctor to the TARDIS, we see him lying on the floor, having earned both wings (yellow arrows).  There is also a divine-type light (red arrow) near his head. The lining is easier to see in the episode than it is here.  


**Heather & How the Doctor Earned His 2nd Wing**  
Before the Doctor died, he and Bill parted without saying much to each other, although they should have.  It was a mirror of Clara and the Doctor before she died.  Here’s the lack of communication problem again.

However, Bill did say one thing:

> **BILL** : But, hey er, you know how I'm usually all about women and, and kinda people my own age.  
>  **DOCTOR** : Yeah?  
>  **BILL** : Glad you knew that.

She put in an order, so to speak, for her love interest.  

As we examined in [“The Pilot” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10695525/chapters/23688636), Heather was the Doctor, so she had to come back.  

Either she is a projection of him or she is a part of his being.  The Doctor is not just male, so he can project either a male or female being.  

In fact, she is wearing a ring, a symbol of the 12th Doctor, around her neck, shown below (red arrow).  


There is a precedent for this in Classic Who.  Time Lords could project a version of themselves, and we looked at this in the [“Knock Knock” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10893537) with the 3rd Doctor story “Planet of the Spiders.”  According to the TARDIS Wikia, Cho Je only existed either as a future projection of K'anpo Rimpoche (the Time Lord abbot of the meditation center) or a creation of his mind, which Rimpoche used as a proxy.  At the end, K’anpo died and regenerated into Cho Je.

The other possibility for Heather was put forth in the 5th Doctor story “Kinda,” which we looked at in the [TPEW analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11073279).  Since Bill uses “kinda” when talking to the Doctor in the dialogue above, the Doctor’s soul probably passed onto Heather, the way the old blind woman in “Kinda” passed her soul into the young girl who was her companion.  They operated like the Holy Trinity where 3 operated as One, but in that case 2 operated as One while the old woman was alive.

Either way, they end up as beings of pure consciousness, who can manifest in human form.

 **After the Wings**  
While we see Heather as a type of regenerated Doctor, the 12th Doctor has to come back to life because he has not finished the rescue.  And he has multiple faces that have to get redemption, which we’ll look at that more in a later chapter.

The 12th Doctor’s face we see at the end of the episode when he is in the icy environment with the 1st Doctor should be back at the beginning, happening earlier in time than what we see on Floor 507. We’ll examine the symbolism on Floor 507, and how this relates to going back to the beginning.

This Doctor’s face hasn’t earned his wings yet.  The other did, suggesting that he did remember what Clara meant to him.  However, what does that mean for this other version on ice? That’s a question I’m considering.

####  **Hell Metaphor, the Satan Pit & the Time War**

We’ve seen more of the hellish side of the ship than the heavenly.  Certainly, Floor 1056 represents the Satan Pit and a living nightmare.  The squalid conditions and nasty emissions outside the hospital are a reference to “Gridlock” with similar conditions in the New New York Undercity.  

And the gridlock has to change in the Library metaphor.

Because conditions in this part of the ship are driving people to desperate measures and time is going faster in Hell, we get to see how beings from the Hell metaphor are going to overtake Heaven, Purgatory, and the children, unless something is done.  We have to see a resolution in the Christmas Special, and I’ll talk more about this in another chapter.

> **DOCTOR** : We can't go back to the bridge. We can only go four or five floors up at the most. The further we move up the ship, the slower time moves for us and the faster it moves for the Cybermen. By the time we get to the bridge, they'll have had thousands of years to work out how to stop us. There is no safe way to get back to the Tardis. It's a mathematical impossibility.

The Ood server in “The Impossible Planet” expresses what is happening here:

> **OOD** : The Beast and his Armies shall rise from the Pit to make war against God.

So we have a war against God on Floor 507?  Yes, in a way.  This is more foreshadowing for Christmas, which we’ll examine.

In fact, Razor said something interesting in “World Enough and Time” when Bill wanted to get back to the Doctor:

> **RAZOR** : You do not understand the dangers. Many years ago, there was an expedition to floor 507, the largest of the solar farms.  
>  **BILL** : And?  
>  **RAZOR** : Silence. They never came back. There is something up there. And we must be strong.

We saw what was on 507, but that doesn’t explain why someone couldn’t get to the bridge.  If those Cybermedics could do it to get Bill, they could do it again.

So there’s something else going on, and the subtext shows more.  We’ll talk about that in another chapter.

##  **Dante’s _Divine Comedy_ , 9 Circles of Hell, Ice & Foreshadowing**

The way this universe is set up, I can’t help but think of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem _Divine Comedy_.  In fact, it most likely gives us foreshadowing for Christmas.  The _Divine Comedy_ comes in 3 parts: _Inferno, Purgatorio,_ and _Paradiso_.  [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_\(Dante\)) says, “As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the _Inferno_ describing the recognition and rejection of sin.”  Dante’s work, among several others, has influenced the Christian concept of Hell.  

Since this Library metaphor universe has become a very hellish place, the _Inferno_ part is rather fitting as it describes the metaphorically fiery place of Hell.  Wikipedia continues

> The _Inferno_ tells the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen".

When I saw Floor 900 being punched through by Cybermen, shown below, I immediately thought of the 9th Circle of Hell.  


####  **9 Circles, Satan & Ice**

The Master is sitting in Hell at the beginning of “World Enough and Time,” but it’s Floor 1056.  While there are 9 circles in Dante’s Hell, the last has a depth.  Wikipedia says 

> Dante’s Hell is divided into nine circles, the ninth circle being divided further into four rings, their boundaries only marked by the depth of their sinners' immersion in the ice; Satan sits in the last ring, Judecca. It is in the fourth ring of the ninth circle, where the worst sinners, the betrayers to their benefactors, are punished. Here, these condemned souls, frozen into the ice, are completely unable to move or speak and are contorted into all sorts of fantastical shapes as a part of their punishment.

Ice is interesting, especially because the 12th Doctor ends up there at the end of “The Doctor Falls” where the 1st Doctor is.  And a bunch of subtext shows that this would be the 9th Circle of Hell.  

Before we examine part of that in this chapter, I want to show you the other circles because the Doctor, Master, and Missy would fit into quite a few of them.  The Master would fit into all of them, including living like a king, being a dictator, and believing Missy’s soul wouldn’t continue on in some other form.  According to Wikipedia:

  1. **First Circle (Limbo)** \- The first circle contains the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, although not sinful, did not accept Christ.
  2. **Second Circle (Lust)** \- These carnal offenders are condemned for allowing their appetites to sway their reason.
  3. **Third Circle (Gluttony)** – This circle contains those who overindulge in food, drink, and other worldly pleasures.  At the same time, they have the inability to see others lying nearby, representing the gluttons’ selfishness and coldness.
  4. **Fourth Circle (Greed)** – These offenders are divided into two groups – those who hoarded possessions, and those who lavishly squandered them
  5. **Fifth Circle (Wrath)** – These offenders are here the being furious and sullen
  6. **Sixth Circle (Heresy)** – This circle contains those who say "the soul dies with the body"
  7. **Seventh Circle (Violence)** – There is a Minotaur in this circle that gnaws flesh.  Those who commit violence against neighbors, self (suicides), God, art, and nature end up here.
  8. **Eighth Circle (Fraud)** – There are several types of fraudulent and malicious offenders here.  Those who deliberately exploited the passions of others and and drove them to serve their own interests; those who abuse and corrupt language to play upon others' desires and fears; those who made money for themselves out of what belongs to God; those who are fortune tellers, diviners, astrologers, and other false prophets; and those who are corrupt politicians.  Also, there are hypocrites, thieves, counselors of fraud, sowers of discord, and falsifiers.
  9. **Ninth Circle (Treachery)** – People here are guilty of treachery against those with whom they had special relationships.  
  
**1st Ring** \- Traitors to their Kindred: for example, Cain murdered his own brother  
**2nd Ring** \- Traitors to their Country: for example, Antenor, a Trojan soldier who betrayed his city to the Greeks.  
**3rd Ring** \- Traitors to their Guests: for example, Ptolemy invited his father-in-law Simon Maccabaeus and his sons to a banquet and then killed them  
**4th Ring** \- Traitors to their Lords and Benefactors: for example, Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus  
  
**Center of Hell – Satan**  
“In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing the ultimate sin (personal treachery against God), is the Devil, referred to by Virgil as Dis (the Roman god of the underworld; the name ‘Dis’ was often used for Pluto in antiquity, such as in Virgil's Aeneid). The arch-traitor, Lucifer was once held by God to be fairest of the angels before his pride led him to rebel against God, resulting in his expulsion from Heaven. Lucifer is a giant, terrifying beast trapped waist-deep in the ice, fixed and suffering.”



The Doctor has a lot of sins to atone for.

Heresy came up in “Dark Water” after Danny Pink died.  People were getting cremated even though Dr. Chang said people’s souls lived on after death.  In fact, Missy is acting like Pluto in “Dark Water” and its sequel, “Death in Heaven,” as keeper of the Matrix data slice, collecting souls.

So Missy would be sitting in the Center of Hell, too, at some point, but she did change.

What about the Doctor?  In [“The Lie of the Land” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11162721), we looked at the concept that a face of the Doctor was a Trojan Horse.  In fact, a toy Trojan Horse shows up in “The Doctor Falls.”  It’s hard to see, but there is a Trojan Horse on wheels, shown below (red arrow), next to the Doctor.  


So the Doctor ends up on ice, most likely symbolizing Dante’s 9th Circle in Hell.  He needs rescued.  

Also, he would prefer to commit suicide than regenerate.  He’s terrified of changing into something unknown, especially after all he’s been through.  Those are Steven Moffat’s words.  I can certainly understand the Doctor’s sentiment.  He’ll lose part of himself and possibly not remember the lessons.  I certainly wouldn’t want to have to repeat those lessons, if I were him.

Since he is willing to commit violence against himself, that may be another reason why we keep seeing numerous references to “The God Complex,” referencing the Minotaur from Dante’s 7th Circle of Hell.  That would make sense.

Also, since Danny Pink killed his young self in the war, that would be the 9th Circle of Hell, which would be another reason the Doctor has ended up on ice.  But that may not be all…

##  **“Fire and Ice” & Perishing Twice**

Since the Doctor has to die again, the ice motif may also be an inspiration from one of Robert Frost’s most popular poems and may give us some more foreshadowing:

> **Fire and Ice**
> 
> Some say the world will end in fire,  
>  Some say in ice.  
>  From what I’ve tasted of desire  
>  I hold with those who favor fire.  
>  But if it had to perish twice,  
>  I think I know enough of hate  
>  To say that for destruction ice  
>  Is also great  
>  And would suffice.

We saw Hell and the metaphorical fire, so now we get to see the ice.  It’s interesting that hate is associated with ice and the Doctor has been described as being fire and ice.

At the end, he certainly hates the thought of regenerating.

So ice is an appropriate setting in more than one way, besides tying in the Mondasian episode from 1966.  However, there’s more to the ice part beyond this, and we’ll explore that in another chapter.  There are several important tie-ins to the ice and hatred concept that we need to examine because this foreshadows Christmas.


	2. Fighting One’s Inner Nature: How the Characters Display It at the Top Level

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I broke this chapter up into multiple parts because of the length. This chapter is about how the main theme in DW is supported by the characters at a top level. The next couple of chapters delve into the complex, multi-symbolic, contextual nature of the characters that shows us their deeper meaning.
> 
> Season 10 & Christmas 2017 spoiler warnings

##  **Fighting One’s Inner Nature & How It Relates to the Characters**

In “The Doctor Falls,” after Missy stabs the Master in the back and he blasts her in the back with his laser screwdriver, he says, “You see, Missy, this is where we've always been going.”  While the quote perfectly applies to their murder/ suicide, it has a much broader meaning, as things have come full circle back to the beginning or near the beginning.  Missy and the Master’s plight is an example of the theme of fighting one’s inner nature, which started with the very 1st Doctor.

While this theme is a main theme throughout DW, I find it especially prevalent in the rebooted series since the very first 9th Doctor episode.  Perhaps that’s mostly because I’ve spent a long time analyzing nuWho and because I haven’t seen all of the available Classic Who episodes nor analyzed them nearly as much.  (This is something I need to look at more closely with Classic Who.)  

More important for this analysis is that it’s a major theme of the 12th Doctor since his very first episode.  Furthermore, its importance to Season 10 can’t be overstated, and every single major character in the Season 10 two-part finale, including the 1st Doctor, embodies this theme in some form.  An understanding of this theme and how it relates to the characters will help us understand their deeper symbolism and what they tell us about the Doctor’s story.

####  **Externalizing the Fight Against Their Inner Natures**

The finale brilliantly externalizes the characters’ inner fights on multiple levels.  There is the obvious surface-level fight that is relatively easy to see with all the main characters.  For example, Missy is struggling with whether to ally with the Master or the Doctor and all that they represent.  However, below the surface-level fights, there are much more complex conflicts going on.  For example, Missy says she is in 2 minds.  What does that mean?

Moffat said if we want to know whom the Doctor is, we have to read the subtext, which means we have to understand the meaning of the other characters, too.  DW has always been this way, using character mirrors, for example, to give us information about the Doctor.  In fact, Missy and the Master are perfect examples of how we have to understand their multifaceted symbolism to see what they tell us about the Doctor.  

Because the explanation is quite long, I’m breaking this up into multiple chapters.  We’ll look at the easiest symbology in this chapter.  Then, in the next couple of chapters, we’ll concentrate on looking at the complex symbology of the characters and how they relate to the theme.

##  **On the Surface: Fighting Against Their Inner Natures**

Before we delve into the complex symbolism of the characters, it’s important to examine the characters on the surface to see what we can glean.  By surface, I mean what we can gather from just looking at the finale and parts of other episodes that seem obvious, rather than the complex symbology that requires a much deeper analysis and understanding of outside references.

####  **Alit & Kazran**

Alit’s and Kazran’s symbolism is important.  Because they are mirrors and require more detailed explanations, their symbolism is not on the surface.  I’m going to save them for the next chapter on complex symbolism.

####  **Nardole**

Nardole’s major surface-level fight of his own nature is just beginning at the end of “The Doctor Falls.”  We hear of it in his protests of tending to the human colonists:

> **NARDOLE** : And more to the point, you are not sending me up there to babysit a load of smelly humans.  
>  **DOCTOR** : Yeah? Well, I'm afraid that's exactly what I'm doing.  
>  **NARDOLE** : Huh? This is me we're talking about. Me. You know what I was like. If there's more than three people in a room, I start a black market. Send me with them, I'll be selling their own spaceship back to them once a week. Please, I would rather stay down here and explode. You go and farm the humans.

His black-market statement was not a surprise.  When we first saw Nardole in THORS, he was in River’s employment, and he knew at least some of her plans for the surgeon and King Hydroflax.  Most likely, he knew she was involved in the black-market sale of the Halassi Androvar diamond.

Also, in [“Oxygen,”](http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/36-5.html) he asked about the mining and gave us a bit more about his past:

> **NARDOLE** : What are you mining? Is it worth stealing?  
>  **ABBY** : You think this is a robbery?  
>  **DOCTOR** : Well, killing you'd be a good start if it was.  
>  **NARDOLE** : It's how I'd do it.  
>  (They all stare at Nardole.)  
>  **NARDOLE** : If I was to do that sort of thing. Which, actually, I probably wouldn't, so please don't worry.

Nardole is a con man and thief, and it seems he is not above murdering people, which fits in with River’s persona.  He also mirrors the Doctor, who murdered the general in “Hell Bent” and showed he, too, was not above conning and thievery in “Thin Ice.”  Having Nardole settle down and protect the smelly humans without falling back into old ways is going to challenge his inner nature. 

####  **Bill**

Bill’s surface-level struggle of fighting her inner nature is heartbreaking.  CyberBill is a hybrid, a living mind uploaded into a robot, even though she initially doesn’t see herself that way.  Since Bill’s human appearance has to be an illusion, just like CAL’s, it isn’t much of a surprise, if you’ve been following my posts.   Therefore, the beauty is in seeing the storytelling: how this gets revealed.  

It’s a wonderful idea to start with a human-looking Bill in the barn after 2 weeks passes from when CyberBill brings a lifeless-looking Doctor to Floor 507.  Hazran is scared of her and locks her in the barn, which Bill, wanting to see the injured Doctor, doesn’t understand.  She’s confused even after looking into the mirror, a brilliant device for the reveal, that Alit brings.   Switching back and forth between Bill and CyberBill is another stroke of genius because it allows us to see Pearl Mackie reacting to situations while CyberBill is there to remind us of the illusion.

The heart of Bill’s major inner struggle starts coming to light once the Doctor tells her what she is, and he warns her not to get angry.  The terrifying truth of her situation and what she is capable of once she destroys part of the barn is only compounded by her realization that everyone is scared of her.

On top of that, the Master’s cruel words to Bill are painful to watch.  While he can’t see the results of his cruelty since he only sees CyberBill, her pain is externalized because we see Bill in her illusionary form.  The irony here is that we see externalization in the illusion while it’s truly internalized in reality.

This illusion of herself as still human started in “World Enough and Time.”  She, like the other Cyber-patients, would have had a sock over her head, which is what the reflection (shown below, yellow arrow) in that episode shows.  It’s easier to see the reflection in the episode than in the image below.  


However, Bill shows an exceptional mental strength that few others have.  She fought to keep her identity all those months of living under the Monks, which has served her well since she is able to keep her humanity, even as CyberBill.  Also, when she moves in front of the Doctor, Missy, and the Master to face whatever is coming up in the lift, she shows her bravery, even though she is scared.  However, knowing that she can feel the Cyber-program taking over bit by bit, she’s ready to give up her inner conflict and her life, mirroring the Doctor, if she can’t be herself.

Regarding Bill’s internal struggle, DW wants us to look at “The Lie of the Land” to get an idea of Bill’s current fight against the Cyber-programming.  For me, “The Lie of the Land” only works relatively well when placing it within the symbolism of the Library metaphor.  In the finale’s context, the multi-symbolic Monks represent the Cyber-programming, and within the context of the Library that would be Doctor Moon.  

BTW, we looked at some of the Library symbolism in [“The Lie of the Land” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11162721), but I need to map out the rest of the Library symbolism in that episode for you in the Season 10 post analysis.  It’s a highly metaphorical episode, and in my humble opinion, it requires too many hoops to jump through to understand it in the normal context without understanding and applying the Library metaphor.  Without that, the leaps of logic, especially at the end, result in what look like hand waving.  This leaves the episode emotionally unsatisfying.  It’s a great example of what I feared “The Doctor Falls” would be.  I’m so glad that I was wrong about that.

####  **The Master & Missy**

I can’t think of a better single, simple canon example of fighting one’s inner nature than the relationship between the Master and Missy.  They are the perfect embodiment of 2 different inner natures, yet they are the same person with 2 different faces.  Therefore, pairing these 2 characters is a brilliant idea, externalizing the inner conflict and highlighting their most important differences.  

**Narcissism**  
The Master and Missy together in the dancing scene on top of the hospital perfectly embody narcissism.  We saw the externalization of the Master’s narcissism in “The End of Time” where he turned everyone on Earth into himself.  That trait is perfectly highlighted in “The Doctor Falls” when the Master not only dances with himself as Missy, but also wants to kiss himself as her.  Later, he desires a sexual relationship with her, which she turns down.  While she’s willing to flirt with him, she draws a line and won’t cross it, marking an important difference in their inner natures. 

**Mental Stability**  
Mental stability has never been a strength of either the Master or Missy.  Since having the drumbeat removed from his head, he’s not a total loon, at least on the surface, but he’s far from being mentally stable.  In contrast, within Season 10 in general and in the finale, Missy, when the Master isn’t unduly influencing her, looks much more mentally stable than he does.  Admittedly, it’s a low bar.  But still…

In previous seasons, both were psychopaths, duplicitous, and cruel.  However, while Missy was changing in Season 10 and growing a conscience, representing change and moving toward redemption, the Master represents being unrepentant and stuck in the past.  Missy is fighting her past for Season 10, which is externalized, especially with the presence of the Master.

The Season 10 finale highlights the Master’s old duplicitous and cruel ways, especially against Bill, who is very sweet natured and trusting.  The Master’s and Bill’s contrasting natures make hurting her all the more horrible.  And I don’t doubt that the Master is especially enjoying this because he is also hurting the Doctor.

 **Control**  
Both the Master and Missy have sought control over others but in different ways.  Because the Master is no longer being driven mad by the drumbeat, we get a more accurate picture of the damage left behind.  Since he had little power, I’m referring to true control, over his life while the earworm was pounding in his head, it’s one reason why he lusted for power in the 10th Doctor episodes.

And still does in the 12th Doctor episodes.  

In “The Doctor Falls,” the Doctor talks about how the Master kills people and makes himself king until the people rebel.  And we’ve seen him do that type of thing before in the 10th Doctor episodes.

In contrast, Missy’s type of control is typically not as overt.  For example, she uses her proxy, Clara, who is Missy’s familiar (as the “The Witch’s Familiar” suggests) to control the one person she seems to care the most about controlling.  The Doctor.   

However, we see in “The Doctor Falls” a different type of control.  While she seems to go along with the Master to subdue the Doctor, it’s the Master whom she ends up ultimately controlling by backstabbing him.  A murder/suicide to kill her past and create a bootstrap paradox upon his death to bring about his next incarnation, which may or may not be Missy.  Ironically, it’s the murder/suicide that shows the biggest differences in their inner natures. 

**Duality of Their Nature: Spite & Hatred Vs. Friendship Toward the Doctor**  
The most striking difference between the Master and Missy is the duality of their nature toward the Doctor.  In the past, John Simm’s Master hated the Doctor, Rassilon, and the universe in general.  He spited the Doctor when he could, and it looks like nothing has changed here because he still holds grudges.

Besides knowing that hurting Bill would hurt the Doctor, the Master is vindictive toward him in other ways.  For example, the Master spites the Doctor in “The Doctor Falls” after the he asks the Master to stand with him:

> **MASTER** : See this face? Take a good, long look at it. This is the face that didn't listen to a word you just said. 

The Master enjoys the anguish on the Doctor’s face and walks off.

However, the Master’s spite and hatred against the Doctor is most acute when the Master shouts that he won’t stand with the Doctor. That, of course, is in response to Missy saying she would after she tries to kill her past.  Since the Master isn’t dead yet, the thought of his future self standing with the Doctor is so repugnant that he prefers to murder his future self than to stand with his old friend.  

The murder/suicide is a surreal expression of duality: narcissism of the Master’s present self and self-loathing of his future self.  Again, it shows his vehement hatred of the Doctor, and the Master won’t give the Doctor the satisfaction of reuniting with his old friend through Missy.  The murder/suicide is the ultimate expression of spite from the Master that shows he is fighting the other face of his inner nature right up to the end.

This mirrors his decision in “The Last of the Time Lords” not to regenerate.  The Doctor begs him to, but the Master, wanting to do everything he can to hurt the Doctor, refuses and dies in the Doctor’s arms.

While the Master is happy being the Doctor’s archenemy and delighted to hurt the Doctor in whatever ways he can, Missy is the frenemy, who becomes the Doctor’s friend at the end to stand with him.  Of course, however, the Master murders her first.  

The Master’s hatred toward the Doctor is especially striking when compared to Missy’s deep-seeded desire to unite with the Doctor.  It’s been clear since “Death in Heaven” when she tried to give the Doctor a Cyberman army that she’s wanted to be friends with him.  She sounded quite sincere and childlike. 

> **DOCTOR** : Why are you doing this?  
>  **MISSY** : I need you to know we're not so different. I need my friend back. 

It’s been her driving factor to make him become like her.  We know she is sincere.  And the Doctor, too, wants Missy to become like him, as we find out in the finale.  

> **DOCTOR** : Missy. Missy. You've changed. I know you have. And I know what you're capable of. Stand with me. It's all I've ever wanted.  
>  **MISSY** : Me too. But no. Sorry. Just, no. (she takes his hand) But thanks for trying.  
>  (Missy leaves.)

They both have tears in their eyes, and they both really want this, but on their own terms.  His own redemption requires Missy to turn good.  She represents chaos and the temptation to become like her and to go, for example, hell bent through the universe once again.  Clara, as a proxy of Missy, also represents chaos and temptation, which is why the Doctor had to have a memory block until he figured out how to deal with these issues.

**The 12th Doctor**

Near the beginning of “The Doctor Falls,” Missy and the Master goad the Doctor, as he is tied to the wheelchair on the roof of the hospital:

> **MASTER** : Ten years you spent up there, chatting. You missed her by two hours.  
>  **MISSY** : Ripped out her heart, threw it in to a bin, and burned it all away. He's internalising. I love it when he's Mister Volcano.

Missy wants him to explode in rage and become like he was when Clara died: Mr. Volcano.  He doesn’t explode, but we see the externalization of ire on his face as he’s internalizing what happened to Bill.  

While the above example illustrated the theme, the best instance in the finale of the 12th Doctor externalizing his fight against his inner nature is his struggle against regeneration.  This Doctor went past his regeneration cycle and is very weary, having lived too long and with too much loss.  Also, he’s been through a staggering amount of internal conflict – tortured, in part, by what he did during the war.

That’s not all.  Being the Fish metaphor, his life, for the most part, has been about imprisonment, torture, and self-sacrifice on a grand scale.  He chose torture and death over and over rather than confess his secrets to a manifestation of an inner conflict, his nightmare that chased him for 4.5 billion years.  

While many of the Doctors spend their first episode a little confused about whom they are, the 12th Doctor has taken 3 seasons to answer his question of whether he is a good man.  Not wanting to lose his hard-earned identity of becoming that good man, he’s ready to end his life, rather than regenerate into some unknown entity.

**The 12th and 1st Doctors**

Right at the end of the finale, we see the 1st Doctor.  Pairing him and the 12th Doctor is brilliant, mirroring the pairing of Missy and the Master.  This externalizes the inner fight of the Doctors’ natures: one person with 2 different faces.  No doubt, this will give us an interesting contrast for Christmas, highlighting the Doctors’ differences in a way we haven’t seen before.  This also brings us full circle – back to the epicenter of the war, where we examined the Doctor would have to return to (Chapter 18: Rescuing Children & Missy/Master).

However, there’s something else, too.  Before the 12th Doctor died in the forest, he told the Cyberman that blasted him with an energy bolt:

> **DOCTOR** : Argh! No, no. I'm not _a_ doctor. I am _the_ Doctor. The original, you might say.

This nearly mirrors the conversation the resurrected 12th Doctor has later with the 1st Doctor, except the 1st Doctor claims to be the original:

> **DOCTOR** : I'm the Doctor.  
>  (The elderly figure in checked trousers, cape, scarf and astrakhan hat comes into view.)  
>  **1ST DOCTOR** : The Doctor. Oh, I don't think so. No, dear me, no. You may be _a_ doctor, but I am _the_ Doctor. The original, you might say.  
>  (Taking hold of his lapels just like William Hartnell used to do.)

Here’s a conflict already of who is _The_ Doctor.  So Moffat is playing with the whole imposter theme that’s been so prevalent in Season 10.  The irony here, which I’m sure Moffat is playing into, is that David Bradley is not the original actor for the 1st Doctor.

In fact, “The original, you might say” was first said in “The Five Doctors” by the 2nd actor, Richard Hurndall, to play the 1st Doctor, replacing the late William Hartnell.  DW loves irony.

##  **In the Next Chapter**

We’ll examine the complex symbology of the characters that shows us what really is happening.  For example, what does Bill’s illusion mean beyond the obvious?  And what do Missy and the Master tell us about the Doctor?


	3. Concepts for Understanding the Complex Symbology of the Characters’ Inner Nature Struggles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, we begin to delve into the complex symbolism of the characters.
> 
> Season 10 & Christmas 2017 spoiler warnings

I apologize for getting the rest of these chapters out after several months have gone by.  Life got in the way.  If anyone went to the 12th Doctor panel at the Chicago TARDIS in November, that was me speaking up at the Q&A regarding the subtext.  I never mentioned this set of documents, though, as I feel very self-conscious about advertising my work. Since I’m writing these documents to help viewers enjoy DW more, I should have mentioned it, and I will at my next opportunity.

##  **Additional Concepts from Analytical Psychology**

In the previous chapter, we looked at the characters fighting their inner natures at a superficial level.  However, characters can represent many things at once, which DW loves to do, especially in Season 10.  Bill, for example, as we saw in [“The Pilot” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10695525), represented all of the nuWho companions.  Also, she symbolized a face of the 12th Doctor, which her guitar necklace at the end of the episode symbolized after integrating with him. 

While this overloading of symbols attached to certain characters gives us a very rich subtext, it makes it much more difficult to explain.  Therefore, to analyze the characters at a deeper level, we need to look at them through different lenses.  One of these lenses is Carl Jung’s model of the psyche, which requires us to look at additional concepts from Jung’s brand of psychology, analytical psychology.  (As we’ve seen, DW is heavily relying on the symbols from analytical psychology for the subtext.) 

Even though Jung and Freud are considered founders of psychotherapy, Freud is a household name while the general public does not know Jung nearly as well by name.  This is probably due to the fact that Jung’s model is much more complex than Freud’s, so it’s much harder to wrap one’s head around.  

However, Jung defined many concepts that are very well known and far-reaching.  For example, he defined the concepts of the collective unconscious, introversion and extroversion, archetypes, complexes, the shadow, and much more.  In fact, we’ve seen how important shadows are in DW, although in a different context.  However, they take on additional meaning when we use Jung’s definition.  Moffat has a very brilliant but simple example of Bill’s CyberBill Shadow in the finale that perfectly illustrates some aspects of Jung’s model of the psyche.  Therefore, her Shadow represents much more than it seems on the surface.

Also, we’ve seen how DW references fairytales, like _Cinderella_ , and fairytale-like stories, such as _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_.  However, I named my first document of this series _Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who_ for a reason beyond what we’ve already examined.  Through Jung’s interpretations of fairytales (they really are important), he developed many of his ideas, such as archetypes, for his model of the psyche.

Besides the paradigm that we’ve already used to look at the subtext, we also need to look at Doctor Who episodes through the lens of fairytale interpretation.  This lens will give us new, additional meanings of the characters.  The bottom line is that we need to look at these episodes in multiple ways to get the fullest view of what the multi-symbolic characters really represent.

Before we start looking at the deeper meaning of Bill’s CyberShadow and the other characters, we need to take a look at the main parts of Jung’s model.  

####  **Jung’s Model of the Psyche**

According to [Journal Psyche](http://journalpsyche.org/jungian-model-psyche/):

> Among Jung’s most important work was his in-depth analysis of the psyche, which he explained as follows: “ ** _By psyche I understand the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious_** ,” separating the concept from conventional concept of the mind, which is generally limited to the processes of the conscious brain alone.
> 
> Jung believed that the **_psyche is a self-regulating system_** , rather like the body, one that seeks to maintain a balance between opposing qualities while constantly striving for growth, a process Jung called “ ** _individuation_** ”.
> 
> Jung saw the psyche as something that could be divided into component parts with complexes and archetypal contents personified, in a metaphorical sense, and functioning rather like secondary selves that contribute to the whole. 

Like Freud, Jung believed the psyche is made up of 3 main parts, albeit they are somewhat different: the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. 

**The Ego**  
The ego represents everything a person is aware of: thoughts, emotions, and memories.  And [Simply Psychology](https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-jung.html) says, “The ego is largely responsible for feelings of identity and continuity.”

 **The Personal Unconscious**  
According to Jung, the superficial layer of the unconscious is the personal unconscious, which is basically the same as the Freudian unconscious.

According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_unconscious):

> The personal unconscious includes anything which is not presently conscious, but can be. The personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been conscious but have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or repressed. The personal unconscious is like most people's understanding of the unconscious in that it includes both memories that are easily brought to mind and those that have been suppressed for some reason. Jung's theory of a personal unconscious is quite similar to Freud’s creation of a region containing a person's repressed, forgotten or ignored experiences. However, Jung considered the personal unconscious to be a "more or less superficial layer of the unconscious." Within the personal unconscious is what he called "feeling-toned complexes." He said that "they constitute the personal and private side of psychic life."

A great example here is the Doctor forgetting Clara.  She became part of his personal unconscious.

 **A complex** , according to Simply Psychology is “a collection of thoughts, feelings, attitudes and memories that focus on a single concept” in the personal unconscious.

> The more elements attached to the complex, the greater its influence on the individual. Jung also believed that the personal unconscious was much nearer the surface than Freud suggested and Jungian therapy is less concerned with repressed childhood experiences. 

A great example of a complex is the Doctor’s feelings toward the Hybrid.  He ran away from Gallifrey because, as Ashildr said, he was afraid of himself.  Obviously, thoughts of being the Hybrid were extremely distressing and persistent, and they had a great influence on his behavior. Therefore, Jung would say that the Doctor had a complex about believing he was the Hybrid.

 **The Collective Unconscious**  
The collective unconscious is Jung’s most controversial contribution to his personality theory.  BTW, his theory was used to create the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a popular personality test.

According to [Simply Psychology](https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-jung.html):

> This is a level of unconscious shared with other members of the human species comprising latent memories from our ancestral and evolutionary past. ‘The form of the world into which [a person] is born is already inborn in him, as a virtual image’ (Jung, 1953, p. 188).

One thing to keep in mind is that Jung believed we shouldn’t take the entire model literally.  It’s metaphorical.  For example, if one takes the idea of a collective unconscious literally at first glance, that can conjure erroneous ideas, at least it did in me before I started studying Jung’s work.  Initially, I didn’t think much of his collective unconscious at a literal level, but as I learned more and about how he came up with the idea of this collective, I could see his points.  Also, once I realized that he never meant it literally, I could see how brilliant this was.   

Jung believed that personality was both a function of the environment and heredity, which, although very controversial at the time, has been borne out, like many parts of his theory, by research, especially on twins.

A great example of how the collective unconscious works is to look at CyberBill.  Instinctively, when CyberBill got angry, she destroyed part of the barn by zapping her energy beam because that was part of her so-called “genetics” of how Cybermen work.  This instinctive behavior is part of the collective unconscious of Cybermen and what Jung called an archetype.

 **Regarding archetype** , according to [Ann Hopwood](http://www.thesap.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ModelofPsyche.pdf), Jung wrote

> ‘the term archetype is not meant to denote an inherited idea, but rather an inherited mode of functioning, corresponding  to the inborn way in which the chick emerges from the egg, the bird builds its nest, a certain kind of wasp stings the motor ganglion of the caterpillar, and eels find their way to the Bermudas.  In other words, it is a “pattern of behaviour”.  This aspect of the archetype, the purely biological one, is the proper concern of scientific psychology’.  (CW18, para 1228).

Hopwood, herself, goes on to say

> The archetypes predispose us to approach life and to experience it in certain ways, according to patterns laid down in the psyche. There are archetypal figures, such as mother, father, child, archetypal events, such as birth, death, separation, and archetypal objects such as water, the sun, the moon, snakes, and so on. These images find expression in the psyche, in behaviour and in myths. 

We’ve certainly looked at some of these archetypal figures, such as the sun and the moon, even though I didn’t describe them as archetypes at the time.  They are an extremely important part of storytelling because these patterns come with certain specified characteristics that enrich characters.  

**The Self Archetype**  
We’ve examined the concept of the Self before.  It’s the unification of the conscious with the unconscious, which represents the psyche as a whole, making all that is unknown about oneself known.  We saw how Self (capitalized) represented the individuation of a person, in other words self-actualization, integrating one’s personality: the person has achieved their highest potential.  This is a goal of the Great Work, which we’ve seen.

The Self symbol is a circle with a dot in the middle, shown below, which is the same ancient symbol used for sun.  The centered dot is the Ego while the Self is both the whole and the centered dot.  


As we saw, the Doctor would not be healed and achieve who he was born to be until he achieved Self, coming to terms with whom he actually was, which meant confronting his dark side and accepting it to move past it.  “Hell Bent” happened the way it did because it had to happen that way for the subtext story.  The Doctor had to confront his dark, psychopathic side of not caring about destroying the universe for someone he loved.

In fact, check out the deleted scenes for Season 10, especially the one from “Knock Knock” at 2:40.  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bupTCmouOnI>  He confirms this.

 **The Shadow Archetype**  
Finally, we get to the Shadow archetype.  I’ve seen a lot of psychology sites define this in terms of the Jungian model, but none reflect it the way Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s protégé, does in _Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales_.  She said Jung would get angry with students who took his concepts too literally and say, “The shadow is simply the whole unconscious.”

In general, it’s everything that isn’t known about oneself, including repressed memories.  The Shadow generally represents the darker side of oneself, things we don’t want to know or think about.  However, there may be good things about oneself that are unknown or repressed, too.

Nevertheless, von Franz said that we have to “bear in mind the personal situation and even specific stage of consciousness and inner awareness of the person in question” when we speak of the Shadow.  It’s contextual and changes as the person becomes enlightened.  And she goes on, “Thus at the beginning stage we can say that the shadow is all that is within you which you do not know about.”  

Missy’s discovery of her good side is a great example of the brighter side of her Shadow.  Did Missy repress her good side?  It sounds like it since she and the Doctor used to be friends.  Perhaps it was the Time Lords’ earworm of the drumbeat that changed everything.  It certainly changed a lot and instilled hatred and revenge in the Master toward the Time Lords.

Missy could not become aware of her Shadow without moral effort, just as the Doctor couldn’t become aware of his Shadow without moral effort.

However, as von Franz said, “But this is no achievement, for then comes the much more difficult problem where most people have great trouble: they know what their shadow is, but they cannot express it much or integrate it into their lives.”

Near the end of the finale, Missy does try to integrate the Shadow into her life when she decided to symbolically and literally kill her dark side in favor of doing the right thing – standing with the Doctor to help save the colonists.  Interestingly, the integration of her Shadow does go wrong, though, as her dark side makes a stand too, and decides to kill the good side.  It’s a fascinating externalization of the battle of the inner nature one goes through to achieve higher levels of consciousness.  One cannot advance without the conflicts and possible setbacks.  

**The Anima and Animus Archetypes**  
We’ve looked at these archetypes before, especially in regards to “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” and the brain room.  We examined how the unconscious of a man is expressed as a feminine inner personality called the anima while the unconscious of a woman is expressed as the masculine inner personality called the animus.

As we saw back in [“The Return of Doctor Mysterio” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/20345815), the Animus was also the character out of the 1st Doctor story “The Web Planet.”  Its use and context in the story is a clear indication that Jung’s definition of Animus was intended.  The story, therefore, deals with the unconscious, even though it mostly doesn’t seem that way on the surface.  The unconscious is a very common subtext subject in DW, going all the way back to the beginning of DW.  Therefore, DW is beating us over the head again, especially by naming a character “Animus,” telling us we should use Carl Jung’s model of the psyche to analyze DW.

Jung believed that the Anima and Animus development had 4 distinct levels for each.

According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus):

> In broad terms, the entire process of anima development in a man is about the male subject opening up to emotionality, and in that way a broader spirituality, by creating a new conscious paradigm that includes intuitive processes, creativity and imagination, and psychic sensitivity towards himself and others where it might not have existed previously.

The 12th Doctor’s character arc beautifully illustrates this process.

The 4 levels of Anima development are

  1. _Eve_ , named after the Genesis account of Adam and Eve.
  2. _Helen_ , an allusion to Helen of Troy in Greek mythology.
  3. _Mary_ , named after the Christian theological understanding of the Virgin Mary
  4. _Sophia_ , named after the Greek word for wisdom.



Of these 4, we’ve seen references to the first 3.  (Helen is connected to the Trojan Horse, which shows up as a toy Trojan Horse in the finale.)  Therefore, it seems very likely that there would be a character or some reference to Sophia or wisdom in the upcoming Christmas Special.  

Wikipedia goes on to say of a woman’s Animus:

> Jung focused more on the man's anima and wrote less about the woman's animus. Jung believed that every woman has an analogous animus within her psyche, this being a set of unconscious masculine attributes and potentials. He viewed the animus as being more complex than the anima, postulating that women have a host of animus images whereas the male anima consists only of one dominant image.

The 4 parallel levels of Animus development are

  1. Man of mere physical power
  2. Man of action or romance
  3. Man as a professor, clergyman, orator
  4. Man as a spiritual guide



The really interesting thing here about the levels of Animus development is that they correspond with the 12th Doctor.  He:

  1. Went hell bent through the universe with a terrible destructive power
  2. Went to romance River
  3. Became the professor and was an orator, giving TED Talks-type lectures
  4. Became like Clarence the Angel 2nd Class in _It’s a Wonderful Life;_ the Doctor got his wings by becoming Missy’s spiritual guide and redeeming her



That makes the Doctor the Animus, and we’ll talk about what this means in a bit.

 **Other Archetypes**  
It’s impossible to list all the archetypes because there are so many variants, and they end up blending.  However, [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes) does have an interesting, basic list of archetypal events, figures, and motifs, most of which we’ve talked about in some form as they’ve arisen in the subtext:

> Jung described **archetypal events** : birth, death, separation from parents, initiation, marriage, the union of opposites; **archetypal figures** : great mother, father, child, devil, god, wise old man, wise old woman, the trickster, the hero; and **archetypal motifs** : the apocalypse, the deluge, the creation. Although the number of archetypes is limitless, there are a few particularly notable, recurring archetypal images, "the chief among them being" (according to Jung) "the shadow, the wise old man, the child, the mother ... and her counterpart, the maiden, and lastly the anima in man and the animus in woman". Alternatively he would speak of "the emergence of certain definite archetypes ... the shadow, the animal, the wise old man, the anima, the animus, the mother, the child".

So as you can see, DW is drawing heavily on Jung’s archetypes to tell the stories.  Since Jung’s work with fairytale interpretations is how he came up with the archetypes, DW is begging us to look at the episodes as fairytales, including how to interpret them – in part.  

There is one archetype that we do need to look at further to help explain the characters in the finale.  

##  **The Child Archetype & Some Variants**

While I don’t want to get into most of the archetypes in depth other than what we already covered, the Child archetype is one that we haven’t discussed much, especially since there are several variants to look at that are important for the finale.

####  **The Child Archetype**

We all have an inner child, which is what the Child archetype refers to.  Jung saw the Child as representing the developing personality.  If we had one word to describe a quality of a child, many of us would say innocence.  There is a playfulness and naivety that corresponds to children in general.  However, there is the darker side where, for example, children throw tantrums and hide from responsibility.  They are dependent, but as they grow they should become more responsible.  The healthy Child balances playfulness and the fun side with the increasing responsibilities of the adult.

[Carolyn Myss](https://www.myss.com/free-resources/sacred-contracts-and-your-archetypes/appendix-the-four-archetypes-of-survival/), internationally renowned author and speaker of human consciousness and spirituality, states:

> The Child also establishes our perceptions of life, safety, nurture, loyalty, and family. Its many aspects include the Wounded Child, Abandoned or Orphan Child, Dependent, Innocent, Nature, and Divine Child. These energies may emerge in response to different situations in which you find yourself, yet the core issue of all the Child archetypes is dependency vs. responsibility: when to take responsibility, when to have a healthy dependency, when to stand up to the group, and when to embrace communal life. Each of the variants of the Child archetype is characterized by certain tendencies, including shadow tendencies.

When adults tap into the inner Child, these qualities and more come forth.  For example, we saw the 12th Doctor’s playfulness of his Child come out with Clara in Season 9.  However, the 11th Doctor best represents playfulness, impulsiveness, and spontaneity of the Child archetype, as well as hiding from the responsibility of dealing with his PTSD from the Time War.  His anger and power made him a huge threat to the universe, which terrified his enemies.  He was dependent, too, on people to admire him, which was partially what his episode “The God Complex” was about.

In nuWho, the long 10-season arc is about dealing with the damage of the Time War.  

  * The 9th Doctor was left angry after the Time War and tortured a Dalek in “Dalek” 
  * The 10th Doctor wasn’t giving 2nd chances, no mercy; he said that he had been full of mercy before the war
  * The 11th Doctor was hiding from responsibility
  * The 12th had to come face to face with reality and deal with the damage from the Time War to heal



Reacting to situations unconsciously through fear or anger, for example, can stifle the learning and growth of the inner Child.  Since the Doctor had this problem, it was up to the companions to help make him better, healing him throughout nuWho.  Clara even goes back to the Doctor as a child to help heal him, which is symbolic of helping the inner Child.  It’s important for the Doctor to be conscious of his archetypal patterns and how they affect his behaviors in order to move beyond harmful issues.  This is exactly what we’ve been watching with the 12th Doctor.  He, like any soldier, is going through all the pain and torture of reliving memories and nightmares (the Veil is a metaphor for them), as well as tapping into that inner Child to finally heal.  

Therefore, the Child archetype is extremely important, and it’s not surprising at all, in fact, it was expected that children would figure prominently in the finale.  I even named Chapter 18 of my Fairytales document “Rescuing Children & Missy/Master.”  I meant “children” in both the literal and archetypal (metaphorical) sense.

 **Nardole**  
Nardole has taken on several roles which we’ve examined, but there is one that we haven’t looked at.  In “The Husbands of River Song,” it took me awhile to figure out what metaphorical part he was playing.  Once he lost his head and took off flying with Hydroflax, I realized that he represented the Doctor’s inner Child and the cowardly part of the Doctor.  

In fact, Ramone and King Hydroflax also represented the Doctor.  River wasn’t being unfaithful as it appears on the surface.  These 3 faces are all different externalized representations of the Doctor.  That’s why [the sheriff’s shield from “Robot of Sherwood”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/18434473) was in King Hydroflax’s ship.  Ramone was the romantic side while we’ll talk more about King Hydroflax in a bit.  River was trying to symbolically kill King Hydroflax to help heal the Doctor of his psychopathic tendencies.  

It’s all part of the rescue.  

In the finale, the Doctor’s strength of destruction was symbolized by his longer hair, which we’ll also examine more in the next chapter with additional symbolism.  As River said in the 11th Doctor story “The Angels Take Manhattan,” she and the Doctor couldn’t be together in the TARDIS for extended periods of time because they were both psychopaths.  Therefore, killing Hydroflax (the psychopathic part of the Doctor) and being together on Darillium helped heal them both.

BTW, at the end of THORS, Ramone was the only face we saw in Hydroflax’s body while we only heard Nardole’s voice from inside.  That implied that the Doctor’s cowardly side disappeared when he was with River, while his romantic side took over.  In fact, there is a lovely deleted scene in “Thin Ice” at the link above with him talking with Bill about River, the Ice Fair, and setting a romantic mood for his wife.

 **Alit**  
Alit was meant to be the physical representation of the Child archetype.  She mirrored the child Doctor in “Listen.”  (She also mirrored Bill, which we’ll get to in the next chapter.)  Alit, like the young Doctor, felt different and apart from the other children.  For example, while the other children in “The Doctor Falls” were happy to see Hazran, Alit looked around like it was her first time at the farmhouse.  Then, she was lying on her bed while all the other children were playing.  It’s similar to how the young Doctor separated himself and stayed in the barn-like structure.

Also, she had a problem listening to authority just like the Doctor.  For example, Hazran told her to get under the bed and stay there.  However, not only did Alit complain, but also she didn’t stay there long.  She alone got up and looked out the window.

We’ll examine her and the other main characters more below because they fit at least one of the variants of the Child archetype.  Please keep in mind there are other variants that I’m not listing below because, while they are used in DW, they are not essential for the finale.  

####  **The Wounded Child**

[Carolyn Myss](https://www.myss.com/free-resources/sacred-contracts-and-your-archetypes/appendix-the-four-archetypes-of-survival/) states:

> The Wounded Child archetype holds the memories of abuse, neglect, and other traumas that we have endured during childhood. This is the Child pattern most people relate to, particularly since it has become the focus of therapy since the 1960s. Many people blame the relationship with their parents that created their Wounded Child, for instance, for all their subsequent dysfunctional relationships. On the positive side, the painful experiences of the Wounded Child often awaken a deep sense of compassion and a desire to help other Wounded Children. From a spiritual perspective, a wounded childhood cracks open the learning path of forgiveness.
> 
> The shadow aspect may manifest as an abiding sense of self-pity, a tendency to blame our parents for any current shortcomings and to resist moving on through forgiveness. It may also lead us to seek out parental figures in all difficult situations rather than relying on our own resourcefulness.

A great example of the Wounded Child is the Master.  The Time Lords drove him crazy by installing a drumbeat earworm in his head, and he wanted revenge in “The End of Time.”  He blamed them for the abuse and other traumas for making him the way he was.  He is the Shadow aspect of this archetype.

The Doctor fits the Wounded Child archetype too, but at a different stage.  We saw his forgiveness of Bonnie after his war speech in “The Zygon Inversion.”  Then, we saw that his own painful experiences awakened his deep sense of compassion and desire to help others, like Missy.

####  **The Abandoned/Orphan Child**

[Carolyn Myss](https://www.myss.com/free-resources/sacred-contracts-and-your-archetypes/appendix-the-four-archetypes-of-survival/) states:

> From Little Orphan Annie to Cinderella, the Orphan Child in most well known children’s stories reflects the lives of people who feel from birth as if they are not a part of their family, including the family psyche or tribal spirit. But because orphans are not allowed into the family circle, they have to develop independence early on. The absence of family influences, attitudes, and traditions inspires or compels the Orphan Child to construct an inner reality based on personal judgment and experience.
> 
> The shadow aspect manifests when Orphans never recover from feelings of abandonment, and the scar tissue from family rejection stifles their maturation, often causing them to seek surrogate family structures to experience tribal union. Therapeutic support groups become shadow tribes or families for an Orphan Child who knows deep down that healing these wounds requires moving on to adulthood. For that reason, establishing mature relationships remains a challenge.

There are several characters that symbolize the Abandoned/Orphan Child archetype: Bill, the Doctor, Nardole, and Alit.  

**Bill**  
While Bill was a real orphan, symbolizing this archetype, she also felt abandoned by the Doctor.  Initially, she developed an inner reality of her mother, which helped her gain an independence that saved her from failing victim to the Monks.  Then, she even developed an inner reality as CyberBill.

 **The Doctor**  
The child Doctor is a great example of not feeling part of a family in the orphanage of sorts.  He separated himself from the rest of the children in a self-imposed manner.  Then, he was only 8 when the Time Lords put him into a life of service, as the Master said happened to Time Lord children.  He had to develop independence in the absence of family.  He saw Missy as the only person who was like himself, so he felt a great sense of aloneness.

 **Nardole**  
In “The Doctor Falls,” Nardole and Hazran had an interesting conversation:

> **HAZRAN** : I've never met anyone like you. So where are you from?  
>  **NARDOLE** : I don't know. I was sort of found.

Because Nardole didn’t know where he was from being sort of found, these imply that he also was the Abandoned/Orphan Child archetype.  That fits with being a face of the Doctor and the Doctor’s inner Child.

 **Alit**  
As we’ve seen, Alit very much mirrors the child Doctor, so it’s not surprising that she would be the Abandoned/Orphan Child archetype.

####  **Dependent Child**

[Carolyn Myss](https://www.myss.com/free-resources/sacred-contracts-and-your-archetypes/appendix-the-four-archetypes-of-survival/) states:

> The Needy or Dependent Child carries a heavy feeling inside that nothing is ever enough, and is always seeking to replace something lost in childhood – although exactly what is never clear. As with the Wounded Child, this leads to bouts of depression, only more severe. The Dependent Child tends to be focused on his own needs, often unable to see the needs of others. As with all apparently negative archetypes, you can learn to recognize its emergence and use it as a guide to alert you when you are in danger of falling into needy, self-absorbed attitudes and behavior.

**The Master/Missy**  
The Master is a great example of the Needy Child, as he’s always looking to control things and people since he had no control of his childhood, as we saw.

Also, Missy needed the Doctor to be like her, so she hooked him up with Clara to control him. However, Missy and the Master aren’t the only needy ones. 

**The Doctor**  
While we saw above that the 11th Doctor needed admiration, making him dependent, he wasn’t alone.  The 12th Doctor showed his neediness in the first part of the finale when he needed Missy to be good, disregarding Bill’s safety.  He got Bill killed because of it.

####  **Magical/Innocent Child**

[Carolyn Myss](https://www.myss.com/free-resources/sacred-contracts-and-your-archetypes/appendix-the-four-archetypes-of-survival/) states:

> The Magical Child sees the potential for sacred beauty in all things, and embodies qualities of wisdom and courage in the face of difficult circumstances. One example is Anne Frank, who wrote in her diary that in spite of all the horror surrounding her family while hiding from Nazis in an attic, she still believed that humanity was basically good. This archetype is also gifted with the power of imagination and the belief that everything is possible.
> 
> The shadow energy of the Magical Child manifests as the absence of the possibility of miracles and of the transformation of evil to good. Attitudes of pessimism and depression, particularly when exploring dreams, often emerge from an injured Magical Child whose dreams were “once upon a time” thought foolish by cynical adults. The shadow may also manifest as a belief that energy and action are not required, allowing one to retreat into fantasy.

We’ve examined this archetype before, although in a different way: as part of the Sacred Marriage of the Great Work back in the Fairytales document [Chapter 13: "Clara Has to Come Back: The Love Story and The Ghost."](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/20596189)

The Doctor, Merlin, and The Ghost are all part of the Magical Child archetype.  Certainly, we’ve seen how the Doctor and Grant as the Ghost thought all things were possible.  After all, it was Grant’s wishes that got him to where he was as an adult.  Therefore, Grant symbolizes the externalization of the Magical Child in a magical type of episode.

In “The Doctor Falls,” the Doctor did do something magical.   When he was running through the forest shooting Cyberman, at one point he lifted his hand to the sky without his sonic, shown below.  However, Cybermen were still exploding.  DW shows the Doctor in many magical moments but they are very subtle.  


####  **Divine Child**

[Carolyn Myss](https://www.myss.com/free-resources/sacred-contracts-and-your-archetypes/appendix-the-four-archetypes-of-survival/) states:

> The Divine Child is closely related to both the Innocent and Magical Child, but is distinguished from them by its redemptive mission. It is associated with innocence, purity, and redemption, god-like qualities that suggest that the Child enjoys a special union with the Divine itself. Few people are inclined to choose the Divine Child as their dominant Child archetype, however, because they have difficulty acknowledging that they could live continually in divine innocence. And yet, divinity is also a reference point of your inner spirit that you can turn to when you are in a conscious process of choice. You may also assume that anything divine cannot have a shadow aspect, but that’s not realistic. 

She goes on to say:

> The shadow of this archetype manifests as an inability to defend itself against negative forces. Even the mythic gods and most spiritual masters — including Jesus, who is the template of the Divine Child for the Christian tradition — simultaneously expressed anger and divine strength when confronting those who claimed to represent heaven while manifesting injustice, arrogance, or other negative qualities (think of Jesus’ wrath at the money-changers in the Temple). Assess your involvement with this archetype by asking whether you see life through the eyes of a benevolent, trusting God/Goddess, or whether you tend to respond initially with fear of being hurt or with a desire to hurt others first.

We’ve seen over and over how the Doctor is on a rescue/redemptive mission for himself, Missy, and other children, who represent other Child archetypes.  He certainly has god-like qualities, for example, being able to create the universe by rebooting it and destroying it.  And DW is using religious symbolism to show us, in part, the Divine Child. 

The whole idea of going back to the Child archetype and fixing whatever wounds the Doctor had takes him back to a sort of innocence, which is a redemption.

The 13th Doctor will have no need to have the St John Ambulance symbol – which, as we’ve seen, is both a symbol of torture and healing – on the door of the TARDIS.  She can begin anew, unburdened by the events of the Time War that plagued her nuWho predecessors.

##  **The Rocking Horse Metaphor**

It’s seems very appropriate that in the finale where the Child archetype loomed large that we also saw 3 rocking horses in the episode.  Rocking horses are symbols of early childhood in addition to DW’s Horse metaphor so part of the rescue.  

There is a large rocking horse (white arrow) in the schoolroom with the Master and Missy.  The horse is easier to see in the episode.  The schoolroom, too, is symbolic of childhood, adding to the whole Child archetype.  


Also, there are 2 small rocking horses (yellow arrows) in the scene with the Doctor and Alit in the farmhouse.  The interesting thing here is that the Doctor wiped them and the other toys (toy soldiers, Trojan Horse, caboose, etc.) away to symbolize a reboot.  Because he wiped the rocking horses away, they symbolized negative aspects that the Doctor wanted to get rid of, just like the other toys.   


Given that we are dealing with the Wounded Child archetype, I believe the rocking horses also are a reference to a classic D.H. Lawrence short story “The Rocking-Horse Winner.”  The rocking horse took on multiple negative symbols in the story and led to the death of Paul, a child.  The only meaning that we need to be concerned about, as it pertains to the finale, is that it was a symbol of the fatal obsessions of a Wounded Child.

 

Certainly, the 12th Doctor had been fatally obsessed with certain things.  For example, in “Listen” he had to find out what was at the end of the universe, and it nearly killed him.   Clara had to intervene and go back to his childhood, a symbol of saving the inner Child.  He was also obsessed with redeeming Missy, which was fatal to Bill.

Anyway, in the image above, when the Doctor wiped the rocking horses away, he was wiping away the wounds.  His inner Child was symbolically healed.

Before we get to a deeper understanding of the characters using the archetypes, we need to look at the Great Work again.

##  **Reviewing a Few Concepts of the Great Work**

I believe it’s worthwhile in a chapter on Jung’s model of the psyche to review a few points of the Great Work, as it defines the process someone goes through to achieve Self.

####  **Transformational Personal and Spiritual Process**

In [Chapter 9 in the pre-viewing analysis of Doctor Mysterio](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/20596189), I said of this process:

> The Great Work can be used to describe the psychological process of personal and spiritual transmutation to achieve individuation, meaning wholeness of Self, by integrating one’s unconscious with one’s conscious. Individuation has the effect of holistic healing, both mentally and physically. This process, if carried out through the 4th stage, brings out the person’s purest nature. 

####  **The Great Work Basics**

A little later, I explained the basics:

> While alchemists of old tried to transmute lead and mercury into gold, gold became a metaphor for the soul being freed from a dead or leaden state of mind (why we’ve seen all the dream-like episodes), as a way to move toward consciousness, an understanding of self, and spiritual enlightenment. 
> 
> The standard definition involves a four-step process of transmutation:
> 
>   * _nigredo_ (blackening) is the Shadow (negative, fearful aspects of the unconscious)
>   * _albedo_ (whitening) refers to the anima or animus, a reflected light appears in the darkness
>   * _citrinitas_ (yellowing) is the wise old man (or woman) archetype, solar light from within – Sun stage
>   * _rubedo_ (reddening) is the Self archetype, which has achieved wholeness
> 

> 
> Each level does several things: it burns off impurities, such as fears and other negative aspects; creates a union (alchemical marriage); and generates a rebirth of one’s sense of self. In order to get to the next level, there has to be a death of that sense of self. A fiery love at each stage opens the heart to greater depths and purifies the alchemist to awaken them to a greater sense of self. Eventually, the person would show their purest nature. However, few people reach the highest level ( _rubedo_ – red), for example, becoming Christ-like. In another example, we would talk about Buddha-nature in _kung fu_ and _taiji_.

####  **Elixir of Life & Philospher’s Stone**

The Great Work is the process that creates the philosopher’s stone.  It’s also called the elixir of life, which is interesting because DW uses that term for the substance that the Sisterhood of Karn drank to achieve immortality, one of the real-world goals of the philosopher’s stone, along with rejuvenation.  The Sisterhood also used it to create the War Doctor. The stone represents the goal of the individuation process, finding a wholeness of Self.

####  **In Christian Terms**

In similar Christian terms, this is the process one’s soul takes on the journey home to reconcile with God through Christ's sacrificial suffering and death.  [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone) says of the philosopher’s stone ( _lapis philosophorum_ a.k.a _lapis_ ), “Many of the medieval allegories for a Christ were adopted for the _lapis_ , and the Christ and the Stone were indeed taken as identical in a mystical sense.”  

I’m not suggesting we should look at this in a mystical sense.  The Great Work, like religion, is meant to be a transformative, spiritual experience to make one a better person.  Uniting aspects of the conscious and unconscious brings enlightenment, which can seem mystical in the similar sense as undergoing religious revelations.

As for the Doctor, he symbolically achieved his pure nature at the end of the finale, which his kindness speech signified.  He got redemption after he sacrificed his life for the good of others and sent Heather to Bill.  His 2 angel wings represented not only his ascension to Heaven, but also his completion of the 4th stage of the Great Work.  Through this sacrifice, he became Christ-like, Buddha-like.  

##  **Same Characters Can Represent Different Stages of the Great Work**

While we’ve looked at the standard, 4-step Great Work process, which was highlighted through the 4 representative colors (black, white, gold, and red) in “The Return of Doctor Mysterio,” we’ve also seen how the 12th Doctor represents the 12-step Great Work with the Fish metaphor.  For our purposes in this chapter, we’re going to stick with the 4-step process.

Missy and the Master are great examples of the same character at different stages.  Missy was much more enlightened at the beginning of “World Enough and Time” than the Master.  She was doing the moral work of making her Shadow part of her conscious.  However, the Master represented the _nigredo_ or black stage, the first stage of the Great Work, while Missy was a later stage.  Just before the end of her life, she made the choice to become fully enlightened by actualizing the goodness within as part of her character.  

In fact, the image, shown below, of her lying dead on the ground tells us a lot.  The photo is harder to see than the actual episode, so I’ve marked her 2 arms (white arrows), which are held out in a crucified position.  The subtext is telling us she achieved the Christ-like, final stage of the Great Work (for a woman that would be the Mother of God, a.k.a Virgin Mary, symbol) and was crucified for it.  It is significant that she rebuffed the Master’s sexual advances, which supports the Mother of God symbol.  


##  **Fairytales, Spirituality & the Shadow**

Doing fairytale interpretations using Jung’s model adds a whole new spiritual dimension to fairytales, including DW as a whole.  After all, Jung believed that spirituality was a huge part of actualizing Self to become whole through the process of the Great Work.  This is exactly what, as we’ve seen, the Doctor has been going through, borne out by all the spiritual symbolism in the finale and elsewhere.

Furthermore, it’s not lost on me that the 2017 Christmas Special is titled “Twice Upon a Time.”  The reference to fairytales is unmistakable.  River even said they were all fairytales.  

Therefore, DW is beating us over the head with the idea of fairytales, and we need to take notice in more than just a superficial way.  

Just like our other lenses, the fairytale lens is like viewing an onion.  I’ll pull back a few layers to give you an idea of how this works and what the characters represent, but by no means will this character analysis be complete.  It could never be.  Each time we revisit an episode, we could do additional interpretations with possibly deeper meaning, especially after watching other episodes.  Also, as our knowledge of Classic Who episodes grows, they help refine our understanding of nuWho symbolism.

####  **Spirituality & the Ship’s _Arabian Nights_ ( _One Thousand and One Nights_ )**

While in Western culture, we don’t typically associate spirituality with fairytales, many don’t make much sense unless we do.  Or they can take on a more important spiritual meaning than a traditional surface reading affords.  We can look at Grimm’s fairytales, as an example, since the Doctor mentioned the Grimm brothers.  But the finale makes reference to another set of fairytales, which I want to point out.  

The clock on the ship has a differential of 1001 years on the day counter at one point, shown below.  Also, my daughter reminded me that 1001 was a reference to Scheherazade and _One Thousand and One Nights_ , better known in English as _Arabian Nights_.  According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights), they are “a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age.”  


The frame story is that Scheherazade agreed to marry the king, who killed his previous wives, believing that all women were unfaithful, like his first.  Scheherazade didn’t want to suffer the same fate, so she cunningly used stories.  Wikipedia says

> On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins (and _only_ begins) a new one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion of _this_ tale, postpones her execution once again. So it goes on for 1,001 nights.

These fairytales are not merely stories. They are meant to be used for spiritual enlightenment.  Reading the spiritual symbolism, they show the trials the soul has to go through to reach full enlightenment.

They have a connection to our DW characters, as well.  Interestingly, Missy was the one whom the Doctor was supposed to execute.  Then, he was supposed to watch over her dead-ish body in the Vault for at least 1000 years.  Being on the ship for over 1000 years, as far as the ship’s differential was concerned, he fulfilled his obligation of watching over her.  

At the same time, the implication is that Missy’s execution was delayed by more than 1001 years, so in a way they mirrored the frame story of _One Thousand and One Nights_.  

DW, itself, is reminiscent of Christian parables or passages from the Dao De Jing where just as one’s spiritual development grows, so does one’s understanding of the profoundness of the parables and passages.  As we peel away layers of the onion, the beautiful spiritual treasure inside is revealed. 

####  **Characters Can Represent Aspects of Each Other’s Psyche**

While using other characters to represent some aspect of a main character is a classic storytelling technique designed to make stories much more engaging, characters can represent aspects of each other.  In this way, the story can add to the main characters’ characterizations without bogging them down in the text.  This technique also adds a lot of dimension and extends what can be done.  It’s much more interesting in a show like DW to watch different characters deal with problems than to have to trudge over a mountain of problems for one character.

Above, we saw how the Doctor ended up mirroring the stages of the Animus development, which may seem quite odd because he becomes the unconscious of a woman, expressed as the masculine inner personality: the animus.  Therefore, the implication is that in addition to how we already view the Doctor, we should, in one sense, consider him an externalization of a woman’s inner personality for the fairytale interpretation.  It sounds strange, but is it really?

 **The Doctor and Missy**  
The Doctor and Missy are like 2 sides of the same coin.  We saw him become like her in “Hell Bent,” where he didn’t care if he destroyed the universe to save Clara.  The psychopath in him came forth.  He had to confront the Hybrid in his Shadow, as part of his healing.  He couldn’t move past it until he accepted that side of himself to move beyond it.

Of course, Season 10 dealt with Missy’s psychopathic side.  Once the Doctor became enlightened, he could then help Missy do the same.  In the end, she mirrored his goodness.

Coming back to something I mentioned in a previous chapter and delayed the explanation until now is the dialogue between the Doctor and Missy on the rooftop where Missy talks about being in 2 minds.  First, the Doctor said

> **DOCTOR** : Knock yourself out.  
>  (Missy pirouettes and KO's the Master with her parasol.)  
>  **MISSY** : Your wish is my command.  
>  (She unties the Doctor.)  
>  **MISSY** : I was secretly on your side all along, you silly sausage.  
>  **DOCTOR** : Is that true?  
>  **MISSY** : Don't spoil the moment.  
>  **DOCTOR** : Seriously, I need to know. Is that true?  
>  (He holds Missy's hand.)  
>  **MISSY** : It's hard to say. I, I'm in two minds. Fortunately, the other one's unconscious.

How can she be in 2 minds unless there is a telepathic link, for example?  OR is she an externalization of, for one thing, the Master’s psyche?  The answer is that both are possible.

[“Last Christmas](http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/34-13.html)” beats us over the head with the concept that characters can be externalizations of an aspect of the psyche.  Also, the episode made it quite clear that the characters were connected in a shared mental state, a multi-consciousnness gestalt that formed telepathically.  As we know, things aren’t really happening the way they seem, as we are viewing constructs from the unconscious, supporting the whole fairytale theme.  Santa is a great example:

> **SANTA** : Hey. You want to take the reins, Doctor?  
>  **DOCTOR** : You're a dream construct, currently representing either my recovering or expiring mind.

Missy is no different, functioning like the Santa dream construct.  How else could she survive in the locked Vault (a metaphor for the unconscious) without any food for 6 months, since no one came to visit her while the Doctor was on the prison ship?  Since we know that Clara is Missy’s familiar from the title “The Witch’s Familiar,” Clara is Missy’s proxy.  And we know that Clara was in the Doctor’s personal unconscious.  By extension of the proxy relationship, Missy was in the Doctor’s mind.  

This makes sense, too, as the Doctor and Missy are 2 sides of the same coin and Shadows of each other.  This brings to mind the image from “Tooth and Claw” where the 10th Doctor’s and the werewolf’s faces are pressed against the wall on opposite sides of it, shown below.  The subtext unmistakably shows us that the Doctor had a dark side.  He and the wolf were 2 sides of the same coin.  


Season 10 showed us many times that Missy was mimicking the Doctor, as she was becoming like him.  Therefore, through this lens, Missy’s struggle for redemption represents the Doctor’s inner fight of his nature.  And he, hers.  Missy’s struggle allows us to see how he had to come to terms internally with killing a lot of people.  While he represents her Animus, she represents his Anima.

Another interesting point to note is that gender roles are vital to the Anima and Animus. Therefore, as far as the subtext story is concerned, the Doctor had to be male externally until he reconciled his feminine inner personality with his outer masculine personality, shown by the reconciliation of Missy and the Doctor. 

Since the 12th Doctor achieved that, it was inevitable that the Doctor would be able to become a woman externally.  It’s clear to me from the subtext all the way back into Classic Who with the 7th Doctor that DW was marching down the road toward reconciling the Doctor’s male/female split problem: the female personality was always internal and always hiding.  In fact, the 10th Doctor’s Time Lord consciousness in the watch, when he turned himself human, had a female voice among the men’s, as we saw many analyses ago.  She said she was hiding among men.

I don’t want to suggest that this reconciliation wasn’t there from the start.  It’s obvious that Classic Who is using Carl Jung’s symbolism of integrating opposites (male/female) from the very 1st Doctor.  However, the 7th Doctor’s stories really show where the Doctor’s arc was heading, at least in a broad sense.

 **The Doctor and the Master**  
By extension of Missy being a Shadow of the Doctor, the Master, too, is a Shadow of the Doctor, so they are 2 sides of the same coin.  The Master mirrors King Hydroflax in cruelty, destruction, and death.  In the finale, the Doctor said to the Master:

> **DOCTOR** : Well, let's see how I do. Your Tardis got stuck. You killed a lot of people, took over the city, lived like a king until they rebelled against your cruelty. And ever since then you've been hiding out, probably in disguise, because everybody knows your stupid round face.

The Doctor even says the Master lived like a king, a reference to King Hydroflax.  Also, the Master mirrors the Monks in many ways, some of which we looked at in [“The Lie of the Land” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11162721).  In fact, the Monks were in disguise, just like the Master.  Also, we saw in that analysis that the Master was possessing the Doctor, which explains the maniacal laughter and other oddities.  Therefore, the Master was in disguise there, too, so Razor’s mask in the first part of the finale is a clever externalization of the other disguises.

Since the Doctor and Master are 2 sides of the same coin, the Master represents the Doctor’s psychopathic side.  This actually gels with the notion that the Master is the War Doctor, which we looked at in [Chapter 19: “The Rescue Plan.”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/23535186)  

Because DW wouldn’t want to show us that the Doctor stabbed the Master, Missy took on that role. However, she symbolized not just trying to kill her past, but also the Doctor trying to kill it.

##  **In the Next Chapter**

Next, we’ll delve deeper in our examination of the characters and what they tell us about the Doctor.


	4. Coming Full Circle: Fighting One’s Inner Nature & the Soul’s Journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, we delve deeper into the characters' complex symbolism.
> 
> Season 10 spoiler warnings, as well as for the Christmas Special for 2017

##  **Redemption: The Great Work & the Soul’s Journey Home **

It may not appear on the surface that the other characters in the finale tell us more about the long journey home of the Doctor’s soul to redemption.  We’ve examined some of what Missy represents.  However, delving deeper, we will see that every main character symbolizes some aspect of the Doctor’s inner fight against his nature, leading to his redemption.

##  **Bill, CyberBill & Her Hybrid Nature**

I’m going to start with Bill since in “The Doctor Falls” she illustrates a simple and brilliant, but heartbreaking example of various aspects of analytical psychology, including the psyche and how the Great Work works. 

####  **The Ego: Bill Starting to “Wake Up” on the Hospital Roof**

Near the beginning of the episode on the roof of the hospital, CyberBill was just standing next to the building as Missy and the Master taunted the Doctor, who was tied to the wheelchair.  CyberBill did nothing.  I can only conclude that her Cyber-programming (representing her Shadow) was in control at this point because the real Bill would have been begging them to release the Doctor or trying to save him somehow.  

This is a beautiful illustration of a concept I talked about over a year ago in the _Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who._   We looked at all the dreams in “Last Christmas” and saw how the end of the episode left it open as to whether people were actually awake or not. 

However, “awake” has 2 meanings, the literal and the metaphorical meaning.  

Of course, the literal meaning is that people are not sleeping.  The metaphorical meaning, however, is that “awakeness” means a state of awareness of self, which is a continuum of the conscious part of the psyche vs. the Shadow part.  A fully awake person is whole, is Self, while a person who is not fully “awake,” still has a Shadow and can said to be not fully conscious.

DW dreams can be literal dreams, or they can mean that a person has not achieved Self.  We can say that Bill is not conscious on the roof at the beginning, or so it seems from her later reaction of saving the Doctor.  Of course, “not conscious” literally means “asleep,” so this can be confusing as to which definition is being referred to.  However, in her case her unconscious was initially in control, and we later saw that she was in a dream-like state, i.e. an illusion.

It is said that many of us go through life asleep (or living an illusion, which is how Buddhists put it), which is meant to be taken metaphorically.  DW is playing with both the literal and metaphorical definitions in many of the episodes.

One more thing about “Last Christmas.”  I said that dreaming was meant both literally and metaphorically.  The Doctor had gone far enough through the Great Work to be aware of the fact that he wasn’t fully awake, and I mean that in both the literal and metaphorical sense.  His realization of the dreams mirrors Bill’s realization of her own illusion.

Anyway, back to the finale.  As it happens, once the other Cyberman captured the Doctor, Bill woke a little, so to speak, and saved the Doctor.  Bill grabbed the ladder of the shuttle, and Nardole said, “Bill’s back.”  However, she wasn’t conscious enough to realize later that she zapped her energy beam on the roof to save the Doctor.

She had to reassert herself over the programming.  In effect, her conscious part had gained some control over the unconscious part, yet she was unaware of her Shadow, as is the case in the Great Work at the beginning stage. 

We could say that she was awake in a physical sense of being aware of her surroundings, but she was not fully awake metaphorically since she was in a delusion about herself.  She was only beginning her journey to wake up.

This mirrors the Doctor’s arc, albeit Bill’s experience represents a very brief snapshot. 

####  **The Shadow: Beginning to Know Her Dark Side**

At first, Bill woke up in the barn (physically) and didn’t realize that her consciousness was uploaded to a Cyberman’s body, so waking up here also represented the nascent awareness of self.  So we first saw her as she saw herself: in an illusionary, dream-like state that the Doctor said was like a perception filter created by her mind.  Even after seeing herself in the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself.  This mirrors the real-world situation where most people are not aware of some aspect of themselves.  The way we view ourselves is not necessarily the way other people view us, just like what Bill was experiencing.

It was not until she came face to face with CyberBill’s shadow, shown below, that her realization started growing that she was a Cyberman.  Since she was just beginning to recognize her Shadow, she was at the first stages of seeing her dark side, which is Stage 1 of the Great Work.  However, while she saw CyberBill’s shadow, she had no idea that she had the power of a Cyberman.  There was still much for her to learn.  Most of the initial Shadow remained in her unconscious.  Because she hadn’t woken up, metaphorically, she was stuck in an illusion.  


####  **Experiencing the Collective Unconscious**

It’s not until after she destroyed part of the barn that her Shadow moved from darkness into the light of consciousness.  In the process, she confronted the anger and instinct of her dark side (Cyber-programming) and only then was she able to control her hybrid nature. 

This instinct to zap things with energy came from the inherent nature of Cybermen.  Therefore, this instinct is part of the collective unconscious of Cybermen.  Interestingly, they are part of a hive mind, a collective, adding to that symbolism. 

####  **Actualization: Bill Integrates Her Cyber Side into Her Personality**

After Bill had a realization of her power, she had several choices: repress it, use it for evil purposes, or use it for good purposes.  Repression would lead to some type of complex, giving power to its Shadow.  She chose to use it for good purposes, bravely stepping forward to help deactivate the Cyberman coming up in the lift.  The Doctor later helped her out too, showing her that she could support the colonists’ escape by using her energy beam to open a hole in a wall.

This is a beautiful example of how Bill actualized her potential into her personality, progressing toward the next stage in the Great Work.  However, in order to advance to that next stage, she needed one more set of events.

####  **Achieving Pure Consciousness: Alchemical Marriage, Death, Rebirth**

A stage of the Great Work isn’t complete without a union (alchemical marriage), so here’s where Heather came in.  This fiery union (the Doctor provided the actual fire) between Bill and Heather created a newborn consciousness in Bill – a rebirth of her sense of self.  This really was meant to be Self, skipping some Great Work levels, since she stepped out into space at the end, meaning she achieved pure consciousness with the Shadow side destroyed, represented in the image below by the dead Cyberman lying on the ground near the dead Doctor.  


Pure consciousness could be taken not just metaphorically but also literally, as she was no longer human but her atoms could be rearranged to manifest as human. 

She was the Phoenix rising from the ashes, just like the Phoenix on the jackets she wore in “The Pyramid at the End of the World.”

In order for that to happen, her old self, CyberBill, had to die, which freed her from the Cyber-programming.  Symbolically, we saw it when the Cyber-suit fell down in the background – the ghost of her past.  This opened Bill’s heart to greater depths and purified her to awaken to her greater sense of Self.  Fighting one’s inner nature is over for this version of Bill.

Heather, too, represented a rebirth of the Doctor’s Self.  She was also the Phoenix rising from the ashes – a purified Self, since she had achieved wholeness and the soul’s journey home.  Going back to the TARDIS on Floor 0 represented going back to the Heaven metaphor and completing of the final stage of the Great Work.  

This final alchemical marriage was one of a divine nature.  Bill’s Mother of God Consciousness was Heather, while Bill represented the God/Christ/Buddha consciousness.  Therefore, this is the metaphorical Divine Marriage: the Mother of God consciousness and the God consciousness.  However, it’s only metaphorical.  It’s not meant to be incestuous.  It’s divine love.

And interestingly, Heather and Bill’s union was pre-destined.  Back in [“The Pilot” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10695525/chapters/23688636), I mentioned that Bill represented William Hartnell, the 1st Doctor, and Heather was named after Heather Hartnell, William Hartnell’s wife.  This is why Heather hadn’t been fleshed out, because her meaning existed in the subtext.

####  **Pre-destiny Contradicts Free Will, or Does It?**

Since we know that the Doctor believed in free will and he had Bill write a paper about this, it might seem strange that DW set up Heather and Bill’s reunion as pre-destiny.  However, pre-destiny or free will depends on whether one is inside or outside the system of reference.  

“Time Heist” gives us the best example of this difference.  In that episode, the Doctor, as the Architect, who was a future self, was directing a self who went back to the past to rescue the Tellers in the Bank of Karabraxos.  Past self had no idea why he was there because he had a memory wipe to hide his guilt of robbing the bank, yet his destiny was already sealed and directed by his future self.  The Architect was on the outside of the system and had free-will while past self was on the inside and was pre-destined while there.  

In the finale, the ship was a metaphor for the system of reference.  Therefore, being on the ship meant being inside the system.  However, the ship, while having a huge amount of symbolism as we’ve already seen, was only a small example of a system of reference.  

The broadest system of reference is the entire arc of DW back to the 1st Doctor, which ties into the coming full circle that we’ll examine more below.  

Anyway, from the subtext definition of the Hartnells’ relationship and from the application of the concepts from “Time Heist,” Bill and Heather were husband and wife (at least alchemically) before going inside the system and getting memory wipes, so they were back together at the end of “The Doctor Falls” where they started on the outside of the system.  I see them mirroring the Doctor and River and even the Doctor and Susan.

####  **Bill’s Hybrid Nature & the 12th Doctor**

Bill’s hybrid nature – a human mind inside a Cyberman’s body – actually mirrors the Doctor’s hybrid nature.  In fact, Bill’s progression in realizing her situation actually mirrors the process the Doctor went through.  When he broke out of the confession dial, he was back at the _nigredo_ stage of understanding.  His dark side was in control, and it killed the general.  Only after going hell bent through the universe did he realize that he had become the Hybrid, bringing his Hybrid nature into the light of consciousness.  Like Bill, it was this knowledge that allowed him to confront his Shadow.

So Bill represented the struggle the 12th Doctor was going through all the way to the end of the finale when both preferred to die rather than lose themselves.  Bill’s words mirrored both their desires, “I don't want to live if I can't be me anymore.”  Of course, the Doctor will be struggling with that in the Christmas special.

However, the 12th Doctor’s struggle started in his very first episode, “Deep Breath.”  In that episode, we saw that the [half-faced man was a mirror of the Doctor](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/22674338).  Also, we saw over and over how the subtext of many prior and future episodes showed that a face of the Doctor had to be part machine.  True to form, CyberBill mirrored the half-faced man as a cyborg.  

**Bill’s & the Doctor’s Anger**  
With Bill as a cyborg, we saw the results of CyberBill’s explosive anger and how much damage she could do.  The destruction mirrored, although to a much lesser extent, the damage the Doctor could do when he was angry.   In fact, the Doctor told Bill that she could no longer get angry because she was a Cyberman.  However, his words also applied to himself as the Hybrid. 

Because CyberBill’s power of destruction was enormous, like the Doctor’s, people were fearful of her, just like many were fearful of him.  So once again the fear she engendered in the people around her mirrored what the Doctor experienced.

 **Bill, the Wheel & the Roman Crosses**  
There were several symbols that told us Bill represented a face of the 12th Doctor in the finale.  We saw the 1st symbol when Bill was asleep in the barn.  She was lying next to a 12-spoke wheel, shown below (white arrow).  Because the spokes were inside a circle, it symbolized that this face of the 12th Doctor was a prisoner, which makes complete sense since her consciousness was imprisoned in the Cyberman.  She was also a prisoner in the barn and on the ship, along with everyone else.  


As more proof that Bill represented the 12th Doctor, all around the barn there were items that symbolized Roman crosses, which, as we’ve seen, represented the 12th Doctor.  In fact, for emphasis, Bill placed her hand on one of the crosses, shown below.  


Bill’s image above mirrors CyberBill’s below, including CyberBill’s hand on the same cross symbol in the barn while standing in the same position.   


**Bill’s Cyberman Suit & the Doctor**  
In yet another example of mirroring, near the end of the episode, Bill’s Cyberman suit fell near the Doctor, mirroring the dead Doctor.  While Bill broke free of her Cyber prison, the suit falling near the Doctor meant he broke free of his prison.

 **What does this all mean?**  
Missy said that Bill was the exposition.  This wasn’t just a joke.  Bill really was the exposition to tell us more about the Doctor.  CyberBill mirrored Hydroflax in being a cyborg with very destructive powers, and it was the robot part, in both cases that was the problem.  In fact, Hydroflax’s head was being controlled, signified by the flashing light and hardware on the sides of his head, just like the Smilers in “The Beast Below.”  

Therefore, just as Bill’s Cyberman side controlled her until she recognized and integrated it into her being, the Doctor’s Hybrid complex controlled him until he did the same.

That’s not all.  Like Bill, the Doctor had to come to terms with his power and anger and how destructive they could be.  Also, Bill’s healing and unification with Heather mirrored the Doctor’s healing by getting rid of the cyborg Hybroflax and unifying with River.

####  **There Are 2 Versions of Bill**

When all the companions showed up at the end of the episode, Bill was the only companion who had 2 versions that called out to the Doctor.  The first is shown below at the university in “The Pilot.”  


The second was from “The Lie of the Land” when she and Nardole went to rescue the Doctor on the prison ship.  In this scene from the clip, she said his name as he was sitting at the desk, but he looked like he didn’t recognize her for a moment.  Nardole was in this image, but he didn’t say anything in this clip.  He had his own clip by himself where he called to the Doctor.  It’s important to note that the Doctor was not really the Doctor in this scene in “The Lie of the Land.”  The Master was possessing him, as [we examined in the analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11162721).   


Given the 2 clips, there were 2 Bills, just like there were 2 Doctors (the one that died, and the one that got resurrected, another Phoenix).  This wasn’t surprising since in the [“Extremis” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11002860), we saw that there were 2 faces of the Doctor in the subtext.  

BTW, interestingly, Bill didn’t know about the Doctor’s regeneration energy in the finale, which implies that the Bill in the finale was the first one from “The Pilot.”

Also, at the end of the finale, there were 2 Nardoles, but one didn’t have a speaking part.  Is Nardole’s non-speaking version representative of his superficial role in the Christmas special, for example, as a mention of his name?  Most likely, there has to be at least a mention of him escaping with the children.  Otherwise, this would leave an unsatisfying plot hole in the text for many people.  Heather would have been able to move the ship away from the Black Hole, but that doesn’t mean she saved everyone, as far as the text is concerned.

##  **Hazran & Her Redemption**

It may not seem like there is a redemption arc for Hazran; however, there is one, of sorts.  Her name is one letter different from Kazran in “A Christmas Carol,” which is not a coincidence.  Elder Kazran was the cruel tyrant who ruled Sardicktown and the entire planet, controlling the skies and the sky fish, including the shark.  The 11th Doctor changed Kazran through his past, as a 12-year-old child.  Hazran is meant to be an incarnation of her past self, Kazran.  And since we’ve examined how there was a gender change at the end of “The Husbands of River Song,” it makes perfectly good sense that we should expect Kazran to be a woman with almost the same name.

Since Floor 507 was meant to be Purgatory (at least for some, if not all, of the characters), Hazran was in Purgatory.  We have to look at her entire arc with Kazran in the same way as Missy and the Master.  Elder Kazran was the Shadow at the beginning of his episode while younger Kazran was the Child Archetype, displaying the potential of elder Kazran.  The Doctor kept showing the boy’s Shadow to him, and the boy changed his elder self, who finally showed kindness and even playfulness at the end.  He mirrored the 12th Doctor in “The Last Christmas,” as both drove sleighs with someone they loved.  Kazran, being 12, was the 12th Doctor, and it was foreshadowing what the 12th Doctor’s arc was going to be.  Of course, the cruel tyrant was the Master persona.

BTW, the characters were sleeping in “A Christmas Carol.”  The Doctor and young Kazran have a conversation that gives us that information:

> **KAZRAN** : The fish love the singing. It's true.  
>  **DOCTOR** : Nah. The notes resonate in the ice crystals, causing a delta wave pattern in the fog. Ow. A fish bit me. 

Delta wave patterns are high amplitude brain waves associated with deep sleep.

So Kazran’s reincarnation is Hazran, who was a helpful, motherly type in “The Doctor Falls.”  She took in children to keep them safe from the Cybermen and showed her kindness in doing so.  While we didn’t see her going to Heaven (Floor 0), she did move up several floors with the children and most of the other adults.  This was a symbolic ascension.

##  **Nardole & His Redemption**

Applying the same concepts to Nardole, he embarked on his redemption arc.  He was the quintessential Child archetype, who had to learn to balance playfulness with the responsibilities of being an adult.  His latest responsibilities were foisted upon him by the Doctor to take care of the adults and children from Floor 507.  He objected initially because his dark side took over when in groups.  Near the end of the finale, he seemed to be acclimating to his new role and higher floor assignment, having ascended with the group.

##  **Alit’s Symbolic Redemption**

Because Alit represented the Child archetype, she needed redemption.  Not only did she achieve it symbolically by ascending floors in the ship, but also in a biblical way.  The Doctor held out the symbolic apple from the Garden of Eden, offering it to Alit in the image below.    


He added

> **DOCTOR** : Then how about humanity's first weapon? (an apple) Tempting, isn't it?

As he said, the apple represented temptation.  However, we have to go back to Grant in “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” to see what the temptation was.  Grant got powers that he wasn’t supposed to use and even promised the Doctor he wouldn’t use them.  But he did.  As we saw, older Grant was wearing a mask that looked like an upside-down CyberLeader mask.  He got extraordinary strength and destructive powers, much like Cybermen, although he did use them for good purposes.  Grant’s use of his powers made him a target for being taken over, possessed, so to speak.  And Grant was a mirror of the Doctor, so the Doctor wasn’t supposed to use some of his powers, either, but he did.  Nardole even mentioned in Doctor Mysterio that the Doctor wasn’t supposed to interfere in others’ problems, but that never stopped the Doctor all the way back to Classic Who.

Anyway, in Alit’s case, she took the apple but threw it at the Cybermen, symbolically rejecting the temptation of gaining strength and special abilities.  In this way, she symbolically returned the Child archetype to innocence before the Fall from the Garden of Eden.  She also represented all the children, so they were all rescued symbolically, even though we didn’t see a literal rescue of them from the ship.  That rescue may be implied from the ending where Heather piloted the TARDIS off the ship.  However, I do hope we get a textual explanation of Nardole’s fate in the Christmas episode.  His fate was tied up with the children.  And adults. 

It’s important to note that the Doctor symbolized the serpent in the Garden in this scene since he offered the apple to Alit.  In the Book of Genesis, the serpent is not referred to as Satan, but it is in The Book of Revelation.  It was up to Alit to either accept the temptation or reject it.  Unlike young Grant in “The Return of Doctor Mysterio,” Alit chose to reject the temptation, thereby getting a symbolic redemption.

Another thing to note is that Alit was associated with a horse-like machine on wheels in the barn, shown below (white arrow).  While the machine didn’t look exactly like a horse, it didn’t have to due to being a gestalt system, like what Santa mentioned in “Last Christmas.”

The property of this gestalt system is reification, which we looked at before in the Fairytales document.  Its shape suggested a horse.  Therefore, it was meant to be a horse.  Because it was on wheels like the Trojan Horse, it suggested a mechanical Trojan Horse.  That certainly agrees with the other metaphors that we’ve seen.  Also, this was another symbol that tied Alit with CyberBill and the Doctor, suggesting that all 3 were Trojan Horses that needed redemption.  


##  **Missy’s Shoulder Devil and Angel**

We need to revisit something from the previous chapter, but in a different way.  Missy, in her conversation with the Doctor on the roof of the hospital, said to him after she knocked out the Master that she was in 2 minds.  While we saw the meaning of being in 2 minds, there is another meaning.  She was _of_ 2 minds, being torn between her shoulder devil, the Master, and her shoulder angel, the Doctor.  Therefore, the Master was the externalization of temptation while the Doctor was the externalization of conscience.  Again, this showed that the Doctor was a symbolic angel, who won Missy over to his side and redeemed her, and, therefore, by the various metaphors, himself.

BTW, there was one interesting piece of subtext on that rooftop scene that showed the Doctor as both the angel and the corresponding opposite.  In the image below, the Doctor is lying on the rooftop after being attacked by the Cyberman.  The white arrow shows an angel wing again with his jacket spread out.  However, his other side is in darkness (yellow arrow).  Also, his leg is in an odd position (green arrow).  The corresponding idiom would be that the Doctor had “one foot in heaven and one in hell,” displaying his 2 opposing sides.  


##  **The Doctor’s 2 Shadows**

The Heaven and Hell idiom extends to the Doctor’s 2 Shadows.  When the Doctor talked to Bill in the barn, he had 2 shadows, shown below (green arrows).   Using the Library metaphor definition, multiple shadows meant that he needed to die.  In “The Caretaker,” he also had 2 shadows.  Danny, a face of the Doctor, died to fulfill the requirement.  However, there was something very interesting about “The Caretaker” shadows, as well as these shadows…  


In this next image from the finale, the Doctor moved forward, and one of his shadows did something interesting, just like in “The Caretaker.”  It became distorted (white arrow), unlike the one marked by the green arrow.  It’s hard to see the distortion in this image due to the BBC  logo, et. al., added to the image.  Check out the episode to best see what I mean.  The suggestion is that one is not a humanoid, which certainly goes along with the cyborg symbology.  


##  **The Doctor & the Trojan Horse**

Back in [“The Lie of the Land” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11162721), we examined the subtext which showed that the Doctor was a Trojan Horse.  The finale not only showed a toy Trojan Horse, but also gave us a reason why the Doctor was to be considered one.  On the roof with Missy and the Master, there was no way he could win the war against the Cybermen without help from his old friends.  Therefore, in order to assure their help, he changed the Cybermens’ parameters to go after Time Lords.  He could be considered a traitor to his own people, which brings in the whole Trojan Horse theme.  It’s possible these Cybermen actually were able to leave the ship.  What happened then?

The Doctor’s actions here mirror Kar’s in “The Eaters of Light.”  After all, we saw that Kar was his mirror in that episode.  To fight the Romans, Kar let the Eater of Light beast through the portal to kill the Romans.  However, the beast ended up threatening both the Romans and Pictish civilization, mirroring both the humans and Time Lord situation in the finale. 

In fact, he told Kar

> **DOCTOR** : So, you were supposed to guard the gate while everyone else went off to war. But you had strangers at the door, and a guard dog in the attic, so you let the beast come through.  
>  **KAR** : It was the only thing that could defeat them.  
>  **DOCTOR** : So you thought the Eater Of Light could destroy a whole Roman army.  
>  **KAR** : It did.  
>  **DOCTOR** : And a whole Roman army could weaken or kill the beast.  
>  **KAR** : Yes.  
>  **DOCTOR** : Well, it didn't work. You got a Roman legion slaughtered, and you made the deadliest creature on this planet very, very cross indeed. To protect a muddy little hillside, you doomed your whole world.

So the Doctor could have potentially doomed his whole world to protect people on the ship.  In fact, the ship was meant to be a model of the broader universe and the Time War, so this didn’t just affect Missy, the Master, and himself.  The Doctor had to redeem himself after being the Trojan Horse.

In another example, while he was born to save the universe (BBC’s line), he went hell bent through it unraveling time.  So what we’ve been watching with Season 10 is that he’s gone back to change the past to set it right.  He went back to near the beginning were the trouble began, the epicenter of the Time War.

BTW, the existence of the toy Trojan Horse is a great example of one way that we know we are on the right track reading the subtext from “The Lie of the Land,” et. al.

##  **3 Suns: Missy, the Master & the Doctor**

There was an oddity on Floor 507 with 3 suns.  At different times throughout the finale, we saw what looked like at least one sun shining, not just during the day, but also in near darkness, as the image shows below.  (They aren’t just reflected lights, like moons would have.)  How did that happen?  


In fact, we first saw the reflections of 2 suns with Alit in the middle, shown in the image below, when she looked out the window of the farmhouse at the Cyberman attack near the beginning of the episode.  She was behind bars, a prison metaphor, which corresponds to the prison metaphor we saw with Bill and the wheel.  


The Suns were really metaphors.  (The lights in the darkness would have fit in “The Eaters of Light.”)

Missy told the Master:

> **MISSY** : I loved being you. Every second of it. Oh, the way you burn like a sun. Like a whole screaming world on fire. I remember that feeling, and I always will. And I will always miss it.

It’s interesting that Missy talked about the Master burning like a sun since we’ve examined how the Doctor was a Sun.  By extension of the metaphors, Missy and the Master were Suns, too.

Alit isn’t a Sun.  If she were, she would have to die, as is the case with Suns in the Great Work.  However, she is a reflection of Suns, representing the Child archetype of the Doctor, et. al.

When the Doctor met Missy and the Master to talk them into staying and helping to save the colonists, it was dark, and we saw 2 Suns at first with the Master and Missy, as tiny specks in the background.  


At the end of the meeting, Missy took the Doctor’s hand and rejected his request to stand with him, shown below.  However, taking his hand represented an integration.  


Then, immediately, the camera showed the same wide shot from above, except now there were 3 Suns behind the Doctor, confirming that the Doctor integrated with Missy and the Master.  Three faces in 1, and three Suns in 1, giving the Doctor immense power, which is why we saw the Doctor’s OMG long hair.  


Near the end of the episode, the Doctor was able to blow up Cybermen by himself with amazing speed, whereas it took Missy, the Master, CyberBill, and him to kill one Cybermen with great effort earlier in the episode.  Again, this is a demonstration of his strength, and like Samson from the Bible, he died using his strength to destroy the enemy.

##  **Alit & Nardole: Symbols of Renewal After _Ragnarök_**

We knew back in the [“Thin Ice” analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10839516) that _Ragnarök_ was coming, followed by a renewal.  Near the beginning of the finale, Alit was carrying a bouquet of daffodils, shown below.  Daffodils, a spring flower, are symbols of rebirth and renewal, so she foreshadowed and represented the coming renewal after _Ragnarök_.  The Child archetype of the Doctor would renew after getting a symbolic redemption.  


Also, Nardole was associated with daffodils, so he, too, was a sign of rebirth and renewal.  As the Doctor and Bill were saying goodbye to him, he was standing in front of the daffodils (white arrow).  They are more difficult to see in the image than in the episode, but once he moved out of the way, they were clearly visible.  


Also, near the end of the episode, he and Alit were on Floor 502, standing near daffodils.  Interestingly, Floor 502 looked like a renewed Floor 507.  There were a couple of larger patches of daffodils, too, as Nardole and Alit headed for the farmhouse to meet Hazran.  


BTW, Alit and Nardole were mirrors: both were Child archetypes and represented faces of the Doctor.  To suggest the mirroring in a physical way, Alit mirrored Nardole’s movements as he told Hazran that he remotely rigged explosions.  In the image below, Alit’s hands were animated in the same way as Nardole’s when he mimicked an explosion.  


Also, Alit and Bill were mirrors.  We already saw the prison metaphor.  Also, they both represented the Abandoned/Orphan Child archetypes.  However, Alit represented the potential of Bill’s Child to return to freedom and redemption from the Cybermen.

##  **Coming Full Circle: The 1st Doctor**

It was inevitable that the 1st Doctor was going to show up.  Of course, Bill and Heather’s existence suggested that right from the start of Season 10.  However, more than a year ago when I went back to analyze the 1st Doctor’s stories, I saw something interesting.  Things weren’t happening the way they seemed, just like in nuWho.  For example, in the very first episode, the TARDIS landed in caveman times, and the chronometer said it was Year 0, so the Doctor said the gauge was broken.  That was the start of things not happening the way they seemed.

In fact, there was a shadow at the end of that first episode, rather than the image of the person who made it.  While it could have been just a shadow, it was clear that DW was using Jung’s symbolism in the next story “The Daleks.”  Therefore, that very first shadow could be interpreted as a Shadow at the _nigredo_ level, which fits with the primitive cavemen.

Even more surprising, it was clear to me that the Doctor was being observed, as though he were in a bottle in various stories.  I got the distinct impression that the Doctor, Susan, Barbara, and Ian were inside a system of reference with a memory wipe, just like in “Time Heist.”  In fact, those scenes were similar to the finale where the Master was observing the Doctor and his companions.

Anyway, all of this suggested that the characters were inside a smaller system of reference for the entire arc of DW, so there was a bigger system that we weren’t aware of.  We had to come back to the 1st Doctor at some point, whether it was through Susan, Ian, or the 1st Doctor, himself. 

It was clear, too, that at the end of “The Tenth Planet” (the 1st Doctor’s regeneration story with the Mondasian Cybermen and the setting at the end of the finale), once again things weren’t happening the way they appeared.  There were 2 versions of the scene leading up to the regeneration in the story, itself, suggesting there were two 1st Doctors, just like there were two 12th Doctors, Bills, and Nardoles.  One set may be inside the system while the other set are outside the system.  Therefore, I see DW coming full circle, returning to revisit some aspects with the 1st Doctor.

This time, however, the 1st Doctor gets to glimpse his future (the 12th Doctor), even though he didn’t know it yet, while the 12th Doctor gets a glimpse of his past.  It will be a fascinating contrast for Christmas, just like seeing Missy and the Master together.

####  **The 1st Doctor Needs Redemption**

It was clear from the subtext of the 1st Doctor’s stories that he was doing some terrible things.  For example, Nero was one of his faces, linking back to the whole king and tyrant characters.  Also, Nero gave Barbara a gold bracelet, which allowed the Animus to enslave and control her.  This was equivalent to putting her in the brain room from “The Return of Doctor Mysterio.”

Also, the Doctor actually started the fire in Rome associated with Nero (the 10th Doctor even mentioned it), and then the Doctor laughed maniacally, much like the possessed 12th Doctor did in “The Lie of the Land.”  Setting the fire was actually a metaphor for starting a time war.  (There were multiple time wars mentioned in DW.)

Therefore, the 1st Doctor was acting many times much like the Master, and the similarity was shocking.  In the 1st chapter of this analysis, we saw how ice represented Hell, so it was appropriate that we saw the 1st Doctor in Antarctica, which represented Hell.  As a result of his misdeeds, he needs redemption, so that is what I expect will be part of the Christmas episode.  We should expect plenty of subtext suggesting this.  Of course, the resurrected 12th Doctor is there, too, needing redemption for his 2nd face.

BTW, the 5th Doctor was in a struggle that started the fire in “The Visitation” on Pudding Lane, which was the Great Fire of London.  That, too, was a metaphor for another time war.

####  **The Big Illusion**

In nuWho, every episode has something that says things aren’t happening the way they appear, and when I went back to the 1st Doctor episodes, I saw the same things.  Regarding nuWho, in all the 11th and 12th Doctor episodes in the TARDIS, there is a mist coming out of the floor.  I believe this is the fiction mist that the 10th Doctor mentioned in the Library episodes.  That mist existed outside the TARDIS, too, at times, but it was always inside.  That is until the very end of the Season 10 finale.  After the Doctor resurrected, the mist stopped spewing out of the floor.  That’s really interesting!

But the fiction part doesn’t just start with the 11th Doctor.  For example, in “Smith and Jones,” Martha’s first episode with the 10th Doctor, the hospital was torn from Earth and sent to the moon.  There was no way this could happen in reality, so we know that something else was going on.

As for Classic Who, the 1st Doctor’s fifth story "The Keys of Marinus" showed how people thought they were living a lush life.  However, it was all an illusion, similar to what we saw with CyberBill.

It appears that the Doctor and companions have been in a dream-like state for a very long time, living in illusions.  In fact, quite a few of the episodes are part of dreams, like the delta waves from “A Christmas Carol,” even though they may not appear that way on the surface.  I take the dreams and living in illusions as simply meaning that the Doctor hasn’t become whole, and this lack of wholeness has clearly been there from the beginning.  So we had to come back full circle to make the Doctor whole from the beginning.

##  **In the Next Chapter**

We’ll take a look at the setting on Floor 507 and what that tells us about a character we haven’t looked at yet, among other things.  Also, we’ll examine how the setting adds to the coming full circle theme, among others.


	5. The Time War: Floor 507 & Christmas Foreshadowing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, we delve into the symbolism of Floor 507 and what it foreshadows for Christmas.
> 
> Season 10 spoiler warnings, as well as for the Christmas Special for 2017

##  **Floor 507: Lots of Symbolism for the Episode**

Floor 507 gives us lots of symbolism not just with the people, but also with the setting, itself.  In fact, it offers more metaphors for the Time War and even foreshadows some of the Christmas episode.

####  **Rural Life**

At the beginning of “The Doctor Falls,” we saw a bucolic setting of patchwork farm fields, a large hill, and sheep grazing.  It looked idyllic.  In fact, this opening immediately set a calm, non-violent, happier mood, except for one thing.  In “World Enough and Time,” this setting showed up in the 2nd close up of a window in the spaceship, so we knew immediately that any calm, non-violent mood would be short-lived.  


Because this part of the ship was closer to the Black Hole, time was literally slower here, which matched the pace of life we came to see.  However, like the ship, itself, Time was an antagonistic character, along with the Black Hole, creating desperate situations on multiple floors.

####  **References to “Human Nature” & “The Family of Blood” Set the Premise**

The scene shifted and we saw a horse-drawn wagon full of children, adding to the eclectic technology on the entire ship.  Here on Floor 507, there were callbacks to the 1800s, like bed warmers in the farmhouse, although clearly the children were wearing modern clothes.  

The scene seemed to promise a slower life for a little while, except violence already came to this floor.  We seemingly saw what happened to the expedition(s) of Mondasian Cyber-patients, shown below.  Like scarecrows, they were chained to Roman crosses in the fields, mirroring the odd scarecrow army in the 10th Doctor 2-parter “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood,” where the Doctor turned himself human.  This immediately set the premise of one group being targeted for their qualities and converted if caught.   


However, the crosses made these bio-mechanical Cyber-patient zombies symbols of a face of a martyred 12th Doctor.  (Bill, the 12th Doctor, and Missy were all associated with the cross in this episode.)  

Because these Mondasian Cyber-patients on Floor 507 were without headgear, they were in constant pain, like the Star Whale in “The Beast Below.”  Suffering on the cross certainly applied to them.  They were martyred beings in the quest for freedom during Operation Exodus.

This brings up moral and ethical questions, which DW has touched on at times because wars create monsters on both sides.  How far does a group go to survive, including forcing people to become cyborgs?  On the other side, did the rural people know these Cyber-patient scarecrows felt constant pain?  What, if anything, would the rural people have done differently, if they did know?  Their priority was the children.  In fact, these questions become important because they are part of the reason people need redemption in the first place.  

####  **Going Back to its Roots: _The Man Who Fell to Earth_**

Regardless of the Cybermen madness, Floor 507 at the opening still set the mood of a slower, quieter life, in stark contrast to the dirty, decaying city life on Floor 1056.  In fact, the wagon traveling down the road brought visions of a scene from _The Man Who Fell to Earth_.  It was clear from that movie that Newton had been on Earth a long time because he saw visions of a bucolic setting from the 1800s.  DW seems to be paying tribute here to the novel the program is based on.  

But it’s more than that, too.  It’s going back to the very root of the story in another way.  The subtext in the movie shows that the man who fell was actually the boy who fell to Earth.  This matches other independent subtext that we’ve examined in Chapter 18 of the Fairytales document: the Doctor at the epicenter was really a child or barely more than one, even if he didn’t look like it.  The 1st Doctor fits this, as well as a Child archetype.

##  **The Homestead Symbolism**

Visions of the past were repeated again, when the wagon pulled up outside the farmhouse, shown below.  The imagery that spoke the loudest to me at first glance was the much older stonework in disrepair with plants growing in the cracks.  It was part of an old foundation that included the remnants of a stone building with a fireplace.  It spoke of a time long gone.   


In contrast, the farmhouse, springing out of the old remnants around it, was much newer and could easily be a home from today with what looked like modern roofing.  The mix of technological eras was a theme in both parts of the finale and spoke to something the Doctor said to young Davros in “The Magician’s Apprentice,” when he ended up on Skaro by mistake.

> **DOCTOR** : No, this is a war. A very old one, going by the mix of technology. Which war is this? I get them all muddled up.

Therefore, the mix in technology on this prison ship told us that this war was an old one.

We can glean much more meaning from this setting of the entire homestead (farmhouse, barn, windmill, old building, etc.) since they provide abundant imagery, including foreshadowing for Christmas.  

####  **The Farmhouse**

The farmhouse, at first glance, seemed like a rather simple symbol, but it was actually quite complex. 

**A Welcoming Haven**  
One of the first things we saw was that it was a welcoming haven for the children, as Hazran greeted them with open arms, shown below.  We saw the children, except Alit, run to her, squealing in delight to see her again.  


We found out later that the children came from around the community to stay at the house, so adults from the community could more easily protect them when the Cybermen came to take the children.  

**_The Waltons_ Reference Foreshadows Xmas**  
Surprisingly, Missy added to the symbolism of the farmhouse, mentioning _The_ _Waltons_ later on.  Really?  She knew about such things?   _The Waltons_ was an American TV series that ran from 1972 to 1981.  The show highlighted the lives of the Waltons, an impoverished rural family living in Virginia, struggling through the Great Depression.  The later years touched on World War II.

The main themes of the show were important to what was happening in “The Doctor Falls.”  One of them included being kind and hospitable to both neighbors and strangers.  We saw that, for example, with Hazran, taking in various people: the children, the Doctor, and Nardole, although Hazran was scared of CyberBill.  

The other major theme of _The Waltons_ was the importance of family, especially during adverse times.  “The Doctor Falls” didn’t really address the family aspect beyond having an extended family-type atmosphere with Hazran welcoming the children.  Hazran did ask Nardole about his family, which he knew nothing about.  Not knowing about one’s origins was a theme, as we saw with the Doctor, Nardole, and Bill.  

In prior analyses, we examined the subtext that said the Doctor had to learn who his family was, at least in part, so this theme should be part of the Christmas special.  Keep in mind that because DW is told in metaphor, it could always end up in subtext rather than a direct callout.

 **The Changing Face of the Farmhouse**  
The farmhouse represented a non-verbal character with a changing personality.  Initially, Hazran personified the welcoming aspect of the house.  After a short time, shown below, the colonists upgraded the farmhouse with a rudimentary technological fortification.  The house had the beginning of sandbags walls, which would grow quite tall, along with wooden barricades made of pointy stakes.  


Later, we saw the transformed house, shown below, in a shroud of darkness even with multiple suns shining, symbolizing Hell had caught up to it.  Not only was there a high sandbag wall around the foundation with more barricades, but also the newly boarded windows had gun loops, the holes in the boards to shoot from.  


The personality of the house had changed.  It no longer projected the welcoming, slumber-party-like atmosphere that we saw at the beginning with the children.  Instead, it reflected war.  Correspondingly, Hazran had a rifle and was quick to use it against CyberBill.

This fortification was not that different from Bill’s and other patients’ upgrades to Cybermen, except the farmhouse showed us the other side of the war.  So we were seeing the motivations for escalating war technologies on both sides.

In another upgrade in technology, Nardole rigged the automatic firing of rifles (red arrow example) from the gun loops.  


The Doctor, himself, mirrored not just Hazran, but also the house and its armament.  Below, he was sitting in a rocking chair on the farmhouse porch holding a rifle.   


Ultimately, though, the house became a symbol of hopeless desperation to save the children inside.  It could no longer protect them.  Nardole had to help the children and some adults escape while the Doctor drew the Cybermen’s attention.  Again, the Doctor mirrored that hopeless desperation at the end and tried to protect the children and adults in the only way left to him, blowing himself up with the Cybermen.

> **DOCTOR** : Without hope. Without witness. Without reward.

**The Alamo: A Symbol of Heroic Resistance to Oppression & a Turning Point in the War **  
The heroic stand of the people at the farmhouse and especially by the Doctor gained even more significance with Nardole’s mention of the Alamo.  It was a reference to a pivotal event in the 6-month-long Texas Revolution from Mexico, which put this farmhouse and associated events into perspective of the broader Time War.

Leading up to the revolution and to Battle of the Alamo, the Mexican government’s increasingly dictatorial policies incited the colonists in the northern border region of Mexican Texas.  They were mostly immigrants from the United States, and they revolted on October 2, 1835.  

For 13 days, starting in February 1836, a group of Texan defenders housed in the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, Texas, held out courageously before President General Antonio López de Santa Anna and the Mexican army, which vastly outnumbered the defenders, finally overpowered them.

At the end of the Battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Texian_survivors_of_the_Battle_of_the_Alamo) says that “fewer than fifty of the almost 250 Texians who had occupied the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, Texas, were alive.”

Santa Anna’s cruelty during the battle “inspired many Texians—both Texas settlers and adventurers from the United States—to join the Texian Army.”  The battle cry "Remember the Alamo" spurred on the rebellion, and, according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Alamo), “buoyed by a desire for revenge, the Texians defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, ending the revolution.”

The Alamo became a symbol of heroic resistance and undying self-sacrifice and represented the turning point in the war.  Therefore, the farmhouse represented the symbolism of the Alamo, marking this as the pivotal turning point of the Time War.  The long Time War was nearly over because the Doctor came back to near the beginning – symbolized by Alit and by the 1st Doctor – to change the future from the past.

 **The Phoenix & the Epicenter of the War**  
At the end of the episode, we saw the Doctor rise from the ashes, gaining new life.  Therefore, he symbolized the Phoenix (["The Pyramid at the End of the World" analysis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11073279)), like Bill.  However, there was another Phoenix, which we haven’t discussed.  The newer farmhouse, too, was a Phoenix rising from the symbolic ashes of the older ruins, as shown below.  This is a very important point because it gives us a lot of symbolism.  


Because this war on the ship represented the Time War and because the new farmhouse represented, in part, the turning point of the war, the older ruins represented the epicenter of where it started. 

We examined how the Doctor would have to go back to the beginning to get to the timeline of the Doctor, who was at the epicenter ([Chapter 18: Doctor Mysterio Analysis Part 5: Rescuing Children & Missy/Master](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/23517906)).  And that’s why Nardole and the children had to go back in time by moving to Floor 502, which most likely was meant to be the very epicenter of the war, the symbolic time period where it started, because we only have one episode left of Capaldi’s run. 

Therefore, in the 2017 Christmas special, we have to go back to an older time.  Of course, DW’s metaphors will take us to a different setting, which appears to be World War I.  And that makes complete sense.

Here’s the thing.  I mentioned in the previous chapter that there have been multiple time wars.  The 1st Doctor started one on purpose, using the metaphor of ancient Rome burning.  The 5th Doctor started one by accident in the metaphor of the Great Fire of London, but he didn’t try to stop it.  In fact, he said it should burn.  Then, in the 9th Doctor episode “World War Three,” we had a reference not only to WWIII, but by metaphor it represented the 3rd time war.

In the Christmas episode, we are going back to the 1st time war represented by WWI, as we should expect, since that is the beginning of the global wars.  Also, it matches the metaphors set up, which would be the 1st Doctor.  _The Waltons_ being a TV show set in WWII, shows that we are going back from that, too, which is exactly what we would expect to get to the epicenter.

**Other Things the Old Ruins Tell Us**

**Mirroring the Doctor**  
Just as the farmhouse mirrors the Doctor, so do the old ruins.  There was not much symbolically left of the original Doctor within the 12th Doctor.  

The 12th Doctor made a comment to his mirror the half-faced man in “Deep Breath.”

> **DOCTOR** : You are a broom. Question. You take a broom, you replace the handle, and then later you replace the brush, and you do that over and over again. Is it still the same broom? Answer? No, of course it isn't. But you can still sweep the floor. Which is not strictly relevant, skip that last part. You have replaced every piece of yourself, mechanical and organic, time and time again. There's not a trace of the original you left. You probably can't even remember where you got that face from.

Therefore, we have to go back farther in time.

 **The Fireplace & the Vestal Virgins**  
Anyway, the most interesting thing about the old house is the fireplace.  In [Chapter 13: Clara Has to Come Back: The Love Story and The Ghost](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/20596189), we examined the meaning of fire in fireplaces, symbolizing passion, for one thing.  However, fireplaces, themselves, hold a lot of symbolism.  People would have huddled around the fireplace to keep warm, and it also provided light and security, so it represented warmth, light, and security, just to name a few symbols.  However, there is something important the Doctor mentioned that connects to this.

The Doctor said in “The Eaters of Light” that he used to be a Vestal Virgin, 2nd Class.  Vestal Virgins were priestesses of the Roman goddess Vesta, who was the virgin goddess of the home, hearth, and family.  [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesta_\(mythology\)) says of Vesta:

> According to tradition, worship of Vesta in Italy began in Lavinium, the mother-city of Alba Longa and the first Trojan settlement.

So here is another connection to Trojans.

Anyway, [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestal_Virgin) says of the priestesses:

> The College of the Vestals and its well-being were regarded as fundamental to the continuance and security of Rome. They cultivated the sacred fire that was not allowed to go out. 

Allowing the fire to go out meant a severe whipping.  

Since the eternal fire represented the security of Rome, the symbolism in the finale – that old fireplace was cold and also in ruins – represented the Vestal fire going out and Rome falling.  That may be a reason the Doctor was a Vestal Virgin, 2nd Class.  It’s probable that he let the fire go out, dooming Rome.  Most likely, Rome is a metaphor for Gallifrey.

BTW, given all the imagery that we’ve examined so far, the farmhouse reminds me of how Daleks became fortified over time. 

####  **The Barn**

The barn represented multiple symbols: isolation, endings, and beginnings.  In the 1st example, the barn Bill slept in was a metaphor for the barn in “Listen” that the child Doctor slept in.  He was isolated from the other children, so they wouldn’t hear him crying.  It represented endings, as there were signs of potential suicide until Clara intervened in his life and gave him a new beginning.

In another example, the War Doctor in “The Day of the Doctor” originally went back to the barn determined to stop the Time War the only way he knew how, destroying Time Lords and Daleks alike.  He isolated himself quite a distance from the city.  He was going to end billions of lives, until he got a new outlook, giving him a new beginning, along with Gallifrey.

Of course, the barn on Gallifrey showed up again in “Hell Bent,” where the Doctor spent time alone, waiting for Rassilon.  Ohila said the Doctor went back to the beginning when he went back to the barn.  Therefore, in “The Doctor Falls,” it was fitting that Bill and the Doctor ended up in the barn. 

####  **The Windmill**

Windmills hold a lot of symbolism, depending on the context.  We saw several different camera shots of the one on Floor 507, as well as the one on Floor 502 at the end with Nardole and Alit.  The first time a windmill showed up is right at the beginning after the wagon pulls up in front of the farmhouse, shown below.  
  
Since windmills convert wind energy to electricity, they are symbols of conversion.  Certainly, there were a lot of conversions going on in the finale with people being upgraded to Cybermen.  Nardole blew up the windmill, symbolically showing the end of the conversions on Floor 507.

However, when I see windmills, my first thought is usually a reference to the Spanish novel _Don Quixote_ by Miguel de Cervantes.  The English idiom “Tilting at windmills” derives from the title character, who upon seeing windmills believed them to be giants, and he wanted to do battle with them.  The idiom has come to mean attacking imaginary enemies.

Interestingly, there was a tilted windmill, shown below, about halfway through the episode.  I see this as a physical representation of the idiom.  Things really weren’t happening the way they appeared throughout the entirety of DW – in the same way that CyberBill saw herself in an illusionary form.   


In fact, the fiction mist in the TARDIS, spewing out while the Doctor was dead, stopped after he resurrected.  Therefore, things were illusionary until the fiction mist stopped.  

####  **The Forest**

The forest was the appropriate place for the Doctor to be while shooting at the Cybermen.  After all, he was Merlin, a.k.a “the wild man of the woods.”  Additionally, it was appropriate that he was able to destroy Cybermen even though he wasn’t shooting at them and didn’t even have a sonic in his right hand at the time.  That furthers the whole Merlin symbol. 

Also, it seems appropriate that he should die in the forest since River is associated with it.  Of course, there was “The Forest of the Dead” episode in the Library.  However, there was also the phrase mentioned twice, “the only water in the forest is the river.”  

##  **The Time War & Christmas Foreshadowing**

In general, the finale was metaphorically showing us how the Time War spread across time and what the stakes were.  By concentrating on Floor 1056 in the 1st part of the finale, it allowed us to see the desperation in that part of the ship and that side of the war.  Of course, Floor 507 showed us the desperation on the other side of the war to save their children.  The stakes were high on both sides.

In one way, it was beautiful to see how this alternate universe model put the abstract concept of the Time War into a concrete example, such as we saw.  At the same time, it was horrifying to watch.  It brought real emotions into play as we watched what happened to Bill, especially.

Because this all was about going back in time to stop the Time War by changing the parameters that started it (not giving into temptation), it was inevitable that we would see a war in the Christmas special.  In fact, in case you haven’t read it, I detailed this and the main points of what was foreshadowed in my [post-airing analysis of “The Return of Doctor Mysterio.”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8033002/chapters/22674338)

It’s mostly about how important the brains in the big “C” room are in that episode and what they really would mean for foreshadowing of Season 10.   It explains how it would fit into the ideological war (the Time War) that we are seeing now, and how the Doctor had to turn back time to rescue the children at the epicenter of the war.  That has almost all come true, except that the rescue isn’t over yet.  

This arc is about Gallifrey and how to save it, so we should see this at Christmas.  After all, the Time Lords freed themselves from the time lock and were hiding out at the end of the universe.  It’s a matter of time before disaster happens.

The other problem that we examined before is that the 12th Doctor, by saving River in the Library, created a bootstrap paradox loop that they are stuck in.  So this is all happening in looped time.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that people in the Christmas special are stuck in a moment of time, a metaphor for the looped time with the Library problem.  A _Groundhog Day_ hell.  This has to get resolved.  

The icy setting of Antarctica is quite appropriate to give us a preview of the _Groundhog Day_ hell.  

##  **Last Thoughts**

I’m looking forward to the Christmas special, although it’s bittersweet. I’ll greatly miss Peter Capaldi, but I’m also eager to see Jodie in the role. I’m getting my tissues ready. 

I wish everyone a great Christmas and Happy New Year! I’ll start posting the analysis of the Christmas special within a few weeks of the airing.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to make this meta series as clear as possible, so if it’s not, please let me know.
> 
> Check out my [meta archive on Tumblr](http://tardisgirlepic.tumblr.com/meta-archive) for images


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